HospitalitY Project: Combining peer support and skills training ‘on the spot’

Rationale: Patients with a psychotic disorder are impaired on many aspects of social functioning and self-management. Consequently, social and emotional isolation is highly prevalent. Furthermore, clinic based (social) skills training tends not to generalize to real life situations. Instead, interventions on the spot (e.g. at home or work) to improve (social) functioning are expected to be more effective than clinic based interventions, as skills are learned in the same context as needed.

Objective: The HospitalitY (HY) project is a home-based nurse guided peer support intervention that focuses on increasing social contact and life skills by integrating peer support and skill training. The primary outcome is social contact in the intervention group compared to the waiting list group.

Nine time points: every six weeks during 48 weeks.

In the HY project, peers will meet in their own environment (i.e. at home) and have dinner with each other. A guided peer support method will be conducted during dinner. Participants have the opportunity to receive and provide support to peers and at the same time improve their social skills. Moreover,a nurse will provide home based support guidance using patient centered goals, targeted at empowering patients to organize a dinner for their peers, while improving life skills. Participants will be encouraged to use their learned skills in daily life (i.e. without counseling of a nurse). Each group consists of three peers. The intervention involves 15 sessions (biweekly, eight months). This way, each participant will receive guests five times.