Poster #161 - Effectiveness of a Community-based Mentoring Program for Youth With a Visual Impairment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Prevention and Interventions

Integrative Statement

Social participation and psychosocial functioning of adolescents with a visual impairment can be negatively impacted due to vision related challenges experienced during the performance of daily living activities and participation in social activities. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mentoring program on improving social participation and psychosocial functioning of youth with a visual impairment. In addition, the potential positive effect of match similarity on the effectiveness of the program was tested by randomly assigning mentees to either a mentor with or without a visual impairment. A total of 76 adolescents (M age = 18 years, SD = 2.0, ranged between 15 and 22 years) and 36 mentors (M age = 30 years, SD = 5.9, ranged between 22 and 43 years), participated in the study. Baseline, post-test, and follow-up measurements were fitted to a multilevel growth model. Outcomes were level of social participation, amount of peer activities, size of social network, social support, and satisfaction with social support. Psychosocial functioning was assessed by measures of wellbeing, self-esteem, loneliness, acceptance of the impairment, perceived self-competence, and three basic psychological needs proposed in Self-determination Theory. Results showed that mentoring significantly improved autonomy satisfaction (B = 0.15, S.E. = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.003, 0.31, d. = .44: figure 1) and competence satisfaction (B = 0.19, S.E. = 0.08, 95% CI = 0.02, 0.34, d. = .55: figure 2). Mentoring had no effect on changes in social participation compared to the control group. No significant differences were found for moderators on the dependent variable slopes for social participation indicators, indicating that change in social participation over time was equivalent for all mentees regardless of their age, onset of impairment, severity and stability of impairment, comorbidity, and amount of match meetings (99% bootstrapped CI contained zero in all results). No significant differences were found between mentees matched to mentors with or without a visual impairment for most outcomes. However, mentees matched to mentors with VI increased more on satisfaction with their social support compared to mentees matched to mentors without impairments (B = 0.23, S.E. = 0.12, 95% CI = 0.02, 0.49, d. = .38). No indirect effects were found for the relation between the mentoring program and change in social participation via psychosocial functioning. These findings demonstrate that mentoring is only of small benefit for improving the psychosocial functioning of youth with a visual impairment. From a practical perspective, it might be interesting to explore other mentoring approaches that might positively enhance psychosocial functioning, such as youth-directed informal mentoring. Future research that experimentally tests other characteristics of match similarity is needed to create further understanding of the concept of mentor-mentee similarity, and its impact on match quality and youth outcomes.

Authors

• Eline C.M. Heppe, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Presenting Author

• Agnes M. Willemen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sabina Kef, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carlo Schuengel, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  Non-Presenting Author