Peer Enriched Environment for Recovery (PEER): An Integrated Health Coaching Intervention Post-Stroke

For intervention recipient recruitment, stroke survivors who have been diagnosed with stroke in the past 12 months and have been discharged from hospitals will be recruited from the collaborating community services and open recruitment. Recruited intervention recipients will proceed to take a baseline survey which collects their demographic characteristics, stroke-related information, wellbeing measures, and quality of life measure (T1). For peer coach recruitment, experienced stroke survivors who have been diagnosed with stroke in the past 5 years will be invited to participate in the study as peer coaches.

Recruited peer coaches will be asked to complete a preliminary survey. The preliminary survey collects peer coaches' demographic characteristics and stroke-related information, which will be sued for the matching between peer coaches and intervention recipients. The preliminary survey will also assess their well-being outcomes, QoL, self-determination level, coaching skills, and cognitive ability. Peer coaches with limited cognitive ability to perform peer-coaching will not proceed to peer coach training. Following the preliminary survey, peer coaches will undergo peer coach training sessions and the post-training assessment before performing peer-coaching in the intervention. The post-training assessment will include measurement of well-being outcomes, QoL, self-determination level, coaching skills, and cognitive ability. Peer coaches with limited cognitive ability to perform peer-coaching will not proceed to the intervention delivery.

Following the post-training survey, each peer coach will be matched with an intervention recipient based to their demographic characteristics and stroke experience. Following the matching process, peer coaches and intervention recipients will proceed into the intervention process. During the intervention, intervention recipients will be asked to attend peer-coaching sessions led by the matched peer coaches. The time of peer-coaching sessions will be decided based on participants' schedules. In the peer-coaching sessions, intervention recipients and peer coaches will meet in-person, and peer coaches will guide them to carry out arranged activities collaboratively. After the last peer coaching session is completed, intervention recipients will proceed to a post-intervention survey, which measures their satisfaction with the intervention as recipients, and a personal interviews, in which they will be asked about their perceptions and opinions on the PEER program. Intervention recipient will also be asked to take the follow-up survey at 3 time points - immediately after the intervention (T2), 4 weeks after the intervention (T3), and 8 weeks after the intervention (T4). The follow-up survey measures intervention recipients' wellbeing and quality of life. After the delivery of all peer coaching sessions, peer coaches will undergo the post-intervention survey, which assesses their well-being outcomes, QoL, self-determination level, cognitive ability, coaching skills, and satisfaction with the intervention as peer coaches; peer coaches will also be asked to attend a personal interview, in which they will be asked about their perceptions and opinions on the PEER program.

The interviews for peer coaches and intervention recipients will be audio-recorded with participants' consent. The recordings will be transcribed verbatim and proceed to thematic analyses. The analysis results of collected quantitative and qualitative data will be synthesized to evaluate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the peer-coaching intervention and the feasibility of the evaluation procedures. Elements of the PEER programme and the evaluation procedure will be improved based on the analysis results for future research and implementation.