Nursing and Allied Health Staff Perceptions and Experiences of a Volunteer Stroke Peer Support Program: A Qualitative Study

Figures & data

Figure 1 Patient selection criteria for the stroke peer support program.

Table 1 Themes and Representative Quotations

Theme	Subtheme	Representative Quotation
Awareness of and involvement in the program	Levels of involvement	“Respectfully, every volunteer comes to the ward clerk’s station, they let us know that they’re there, and then they proceed to go around to the patients. Always friendly, the patients look forward to it.” [Participant 10 – Nurse]
	Referral of patients and volunteer peers	“ … and there is weekly meetings, we also recommend all the people that may be appropriate to be part of it, as in the clients, the patients themselves that are on the ward at the time. So we will say ‘yes such and such’ and they will be put down for the nurse to then contact, whether they’d like to see [a volunteer] that week or not.” [Participant 2 – Allied Health Staff]
Recognising the benefits of the program	Benefits to patients and family	“I think the benefits are huge … I think it’s really important for the patients to meet someone that’s been through what they have been through … … for them to see someone on the other side and know that their life is not always going to be always sitting in the hospital bed.” [Participant 5 – Allied Health Staff] “Any interaction they have with anyone is good, because it can, it’s quite isolating, it’s life changing having a stroke and their whole world is, you know, turned upside down. So having anyone else from the outside is beneficial to a patient … ” [Participant 10 – Nurse] “So benefits to the patients is they can see a light at the end of the tunnel, because patients do not understand they are in the process of getting better, but they do not see the progress that they do make and it’s nice to have someone that’s been through the process … ” [Participant 3 – Nurse] “I think the carer goes through a lot of grief and really, you know, because they have lost what their partner was, and I think you know, that they can talk to somebody that has been through that and that I think it’s hard for the carer sometimes to talk to the person that’s had the stroke.” [Participant 7 – Allied Health Staff]
	4.2.2 Benefits to volunteer peers	“I think there’s also a huge benefit to the volunteer peers that should not be overlooked. I think that they have a big purpose, it’s keeping them active, it’s getting them out of the house, they are kind of accountable to someone, and I think that there’s probably a huge benefit to volunteer peers as well as the patients.” [Participant 5 – Allied Health Staff]
	4.2.3 Benefits to staff	… [it] almost takes a little bit of pressure off of us, if we know that the volunteer is doing some of that, and they have got an hour that they are going to be spending with someone else. So that would be [the main] benefit for staff … ” [Participant 5 – Allied Health Staff] “ … sometimes your work’s really hard and it’s really sad and [that] whole compassion fatigue starts coming in and then, you know, one of the volunteer peers might walk onto the ward and it just reminds you that some of our stroke survivors do get home and do get back to the community and do get to start living their life again, and so it kind of peps you up to keep you going and … ” [Participant 8 – Allied Health Staff]
4.3 Perceived enablers and barriers of the program	4.3.1 Enablers of the success of the program	“We do not do the day-to-day running and [phone] calling, organising it. We have got to have someone that can do that, so I think that that’s really important, having, [the volunteer coordinator] … … none of us have the time to do all that calling and emailing and everything else that happens. So I think having that person is the biggest enabler.” [Participant 5 – Allied Health Staff]
	4.3.2 Barriers to the success of the program	“ … I think the only barrier might be the timing. Like the bad timing is the afternoon. It depends really the days, like weekends we would have so much more time, during the weekdays there is so much going on, different physios, occupational therapists and everybody’s going somewhere, speech therapists, … ” [Participant 9 – Nurse]
4.4. Suggestions for the future of the program	4.4.1 Program development and expansion	So I think anything group-based or group, I would say anything group-based with the volunteer peers and with the patients that are more, that are dealing with depression post-stroke would be beneficial, ‘cause isolation is one of the hardest things for them.” [Participant 10 – Nurse] “We have been in one way lucky that it shows the progress that they’ve [volunteer peers] done so well in their recovery. But maybe we should have people that did not recover as well because not everyone does have those improvements, but regardless of that, how they are still managing and they are still coping well in their lives.” [Participant 2 – Allied Health Staff]

Figure 2 Summary of themes and subthemes.