Volunteers' experiences of becoming arthritis self-management lay leaders:"It's almost as if I've stopped aging and started to get younger!"

Objective. To determine whether undergoing training to become a lay leader and conducting an arthritis self-management course is associated with impro vements in physical and psychological health status, arthritis self-efficac y, use of self-management techniques, and visits to the general practitione r. In addition, we aimed to describe the experiences of training and course delivery from the older volunteers' perspective. Methods. 21 participants completed all assessments and had a median age of 58, median disease duration of 10 years, and either osteoarthritis (n = 13) or rheumatoid arthritis (n = 8). The study was a pretest-posttest design w ith qualitative data collected at 3 points in time: before training, 6 week s after training, and 6 months after training, Quantitative data were colle cted through self-administered postal questionnaires at baseline and 6-mont h followup. Result. Six months after training, participants reported small, significant increases in arthritis self-efficacy for pain (P = 0.002), cognitive sympt om management (P = 0.004), and communication with their physician (P = 0.02 4) and a small, significant decrease in depressed mood (P = 0.04). Qualitat ive data supported these findings, with participants reporting more confide nce, happiness, and a changed outlook on life in general. Volunteerism was associated with altruistic behavior and with filling the vocational void ca used by retirement. Conclusion. Findings support the value of volunteerism and training to beco me lay leaders in arthritis self-management programs. Volunteers reported p ositive changes both in themselves and in course participants. They enjoyed helping similar others and being involved in a worthwhile activity, and th ey valued their newly acquired status as lay leaders. Many had begun to app ly their newfound knowledge about self-management to their own situation, r eporting less pain and more willingness "to get on with life.".