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Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support

BACKGROUND: Doctors’ health is of importance for the quality and development of health care and to doctors themselves. As doctors are hesitant to seek medical treatment, peer support services, with an alleged lower threshold for seeking help, is provided in many countries. Peer support services may...

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Autores principales: Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt, Veggeland, Frode, Bååthe, Fredrik, Drewes, Christina, Rø, Karin Isaksson
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10066008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37004074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09312-y
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author Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt
Veggeland, Frode
Bååthe, Fredrik
Drewes, Christina
Rø, Karin Isaksson
author_facet Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt
Veggeland, Frode
Bååthe, Fredrik
Drewes, Christina
Rø, Karin Isaksson
author_sort Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Doctors’ health is of importance for the quality and development of health care and to doctors themselves. As doctors are hesitant to seek medical treatment, peer support services, with an alleged lower threshold for seeking help, is provided in many countries. Peer support services may be the first place to which doctors turn when they search for support and advice relating to their own health and private or professional well-being. This paper explores how doctors perceive the peer support service and how it can meet their needs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve doctors were interviewed a year after attending a peer support service which is accessible to all doctors in Norway. The qualitative, semi-structured interviews took place by on-line video meetings or over the phone (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) during 2020 and were audiotaped. Analysis was data-driven, and systematic text condensation was used as strategy for the qualitative analysis. The empirical material was further interpreted with the use of theories of organizational culture by Edgar Schein. RESULTS: The doctors sought peer support due to a range of different needs including both occupational and personal challenges. They attended peer support to engage in dialogue with a fellow doctor outside of the workplace, some were in search of a combination of dialogue and mental health care. The doctors wanted peer support to have a different quality from that of a regular doctor/patient appointment. The doctors expressed they needed and got psychological safety and an open conversation in a flexible and informal setting. Some of these qualities are related to the formal structure of the service, whereas others are based on the way the service is practised. CONCLUSIONS: Peer support seems to provide psychological safety through its flexible, informal, and confidential characteristics. The service thus offers doctors in need of support a valued and suitable space that is clearly distinct from a doctor/patient relationship. The doctors’ needs are met to a high extent by the peer-support service, through such conditions that the doctors experience as beneficial. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09312-y.
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spelling pubmed-100660082023-04-03 Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt Veggeland, Frode Bååthe, Fredrik Drewes, Christina Rø, Karin Isaksson BMC Health Serv Res Research BACKGROUND: Doctors’ health is of importance for the quality and development of health care and to doctors themselves. As doctors are hesitant to seek medical treatment, peer support services, with an alleged lower threshold for seeking help, is provided in many countries. Peer support services may be the first place to which doctors turn when they search for support and advice relating to their own health and private or professional well-being. This paper explores how doctors perceive the peer support service and how it can meet their needs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twelve doctors were interviewed a year after attending a peer support service which is accessible to all doctors in Norway. The qualitative, semi-structured interviews took place by on-line video meetings or over the phone (due to the COVID-19 pandemic) during 2020 and were audiotaped. Analysis was data-driven, and systematic text condensation was used as strategy for the qualitative analysis. The empirical material was further interpreted with the use of theories of organizational culture by Edgar Schein. RESULTS: The doctors sought peer support due to a range of different needs including both occupational and personal challenges. They attended peer support to engage in dialogue with a fellow doctor outside of the workplace, some were in search of a combination of dialogue and mental health care. The doctors wanted peer support to have a different quality from that of a regular doctor/patient appointment. The doctors expressed they needed and got psychological safety and an open conversation in a flexible and informal setting. Some of these qualities are related to the formal structure of the service, whereas others are based on the way the service is practised. CONCLUSIONS: Peer support seems to provide psychological safety through its flexible, informal, and confidential characteristics. The service thus offers doctors in need of support a valued and suitable space that is clearly distinct from a doctor/patient relationship. The doctors’ needs are met to a high extent by the peer-support service, through such conditions that the doctors experience as beneficial. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-023-09312-y. BioMed Central 2023-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC10066008/ /pubmed/37004074 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09312-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Horne, Ingrid Marie Taxt
Veggeland, Frode
Bååthe, Fredrik
Drewes, Christina
Rø, Karin Isaksson
Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title_full Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title_fullStr Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title_full_unstemmed Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title_short Understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
title_sort understanding peer support: a qualitative interview study of doctors one year after seeking support
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10066008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37004074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09312-y
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