Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can lead to decades of disability, resulting in decreased health outcomes, such as social isolation and mental health concerns. People with TBI often experience a lack of continuity of care, further impeding long-term health outcomes. Integrating community-partners and survivors of brain injury through peer-support during the acute stage ensures a long-term patient-oriented approach and is a promising health delivery intervention. Peer-support is a trained mentor with lived experience of a condition meeting another person who is relatively new to it. A multi-site peer-support program will be built with brain injury associations and patient-partners to effectively test the effectiveness of peer-support for people with brain injury on clinical outcomes. Clinical outcomes include measures of self-efficacy, resiliency, hope, and quality of life. Findings will highlight the importance of involving people with lived experience in health services delivery and provide critical knowledge to implementing and testing peer-support programs across Canada, thereby increasing access to necessary services, and improving health outcomes for people with traumatic brain injury.