What is the project about?
Chronic disease is a leading cause of death and disability that disproportionately burdens culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. While self-management is a cornerstone of effective chronic disease management, people from CALD communities engage less effectively with these approaches. The Natural Helper (NH) Program aims to facilitate consumer engagement with self-management by embedding culture-specific peer mentors with lived experience of chronic disease into existing health services.
Who’s involved?
In this clinical trial, consumer volunteers from CALD backgrounds will be recruited, trained and supported to work in chronic disease clinics (eg. Diabetes and Cardiac rehab). The NH mentors will be supported to use their lived experience with disease self-management and health system navigation to provide culture-specific mentoring to patients for up to 6-months. The trial will evaluate the effect Natural Helper mentoring has on patients’ ‘activation’ for chronic disease self-management, chronic disease self-efficacy, coping and health-related quality of life. Simultaneously we will evaluate implementation outcomes to facilitate rapid translation of findings into practice.
What are the anticipated outcomes of the project?
This trial will expand our understanding on how best to support people from CALD communities self-manage chronic disease. Ultimately, this will help improve health outcomes for people from CALD communities.
