Do Peer Mentors Benefit from a Peer Health Promotion Program?

Background/Purpose: Peer health promotion programs have been found to be effective for the peer mentees. However, it is unclear whether peer mentors also benefit from the relationship. Given the reciprocal nature of the peer mentor/mentee relationship, it seems possible that the peer mentors would have an opportunity to refresh their own health behaviors, gain needed self-efficacy, and further practice their behavior skills and capacities. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a peer physical activity and nutrition program on the peer mentors themselves. 

Method: College students (n= 33) from a health promotion class served as one-on-one mentors for their college peers to promote their knowledge, attitude, and practice of physical activity and nutrition related behaviors. The peer mentors/mentees met twice a week for 6 weeks. The meetings followed the curriculum orchestrated, pilot-tested and developed by the research team. The meetings included tutoring, discussion, counseling, and other activities (e.g., gym practice and grocery store tour). Data were collected pre and post intervention from the peer mentors.

Analysis/Results: A repeated measure MANOVA showed that there was a significant intervention effect for peer mentors, F(6, 32)=3.7, p<.01, η²=.40. Univariate tests indicated that the intervention effects were significant on knowledge of physical activity, F(1, 32)=5.37, p<.05, η²=.14, nutrition knowledge, F(1, 32)=8.84, p<.01, η²=.22, and nutrition practice, F(1, 32)=7.74, p<.01, η²=.20; The time effects were not significant on attitudes toward physical activity, F(1, 32)=1.89, p>.05, η²=.06, attitudes toward nutrition, F(1, 32)=.99, p>.05, η²=.03, or physical activity behavior, F(1, 32)=.75, p>.05, η²=.02. 

Conclusions: Peer mentors benefited from their participation in a peer physical activity and nutrition education program, though not uniformly. In some instances this may have been due to a ceiling effect for the measures used. Regardless, significant and substantial improvements were observed for the intervention as a whole (i.e., omnibus MANOVA test, η²=.40). Qualitative information may be useful to collect in future studies to further examine the mechanism about the effect of peer education on peer mentors, as well as further enriching the data collected (e.g., discovering benefits that were not directly assessed, elucidating the extent of the ceiling effect for some variables).