Women to Women

The Women to Women Project was created to provide women with chronic illnesses health information, as well as increase their psychosocial health with the use of a computer based intervention. The project targets rural, middle-aged women diagnosed with chronic conditions. Women who live in rural areas were targeted because their geographic isolation made them even more susceptible to depression, stress, and loneliness. Women participate in the program for 22 weeks and are exposed to a specialized online network for support with adapting to life with a chronic condition. Using online self-support groups, as well as instructional lessons on how to access health information via the internet, the women are better enabled to deal with the depression, loneliness, and stress associated with chronic illnesses. They have access to an online peer-led support group and health teaching units. A chat room, as well as a mailbox, is available 24 hours a day for the women to contact other participants or the research team. The Women to Women study included participants with a range of chronic conditions which require constant maintenance. Because of this, being able to adapt to living with a chronic disease is very essential. A strong sense of self-efficacy, self-esteem, empowerment, and social support can help battle depression, stress, and loneliness, which decrease poor health outcomes.

The project has (so far) moved through three phases. These phases are also referred to as "Women to Women I" (or II or III respectively).

Women to Women aims to provide social support for chronically ill rural women to positively affect social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy in order to decrease stress, depression, and loneliness to improve one’s adaptation to living with a chronic disease.

The overall goal of WTW is to use technology to enhance the potential for rural women to more successfully adapt to their chronic illnesses through computer-based support and education research by providing support groups and health education via the Internet.

The WTW project shows that computer-based interventions can result in improved self-esteem, social support, and empowerment among rural women with chronic illness.

A case control study was conducted with 120 participants (43 intervention, 57 control). Participants were limited to women ages 35-65 with a chronic disease living in rural areas. Participants were mailed questionnaires to assess the psychosocial health indicators: social support, self-esteem, empowerment, self-efficacy, stress, depression, and loneliness. The study found that self-esteem is significantly positively associated with social support, empowerment, and self-efficacy (p = 0.01 for all). Stress, loneliness, and depression were negatively associated with self-esteem, social support, empowerment, and self-efficacy (p = 0.01 for all). Positive psychosocial factors increase over the time with the intervention when compared to the control group, including self-esteem (p = 0.016), social support (p = 0.038), and empowerment (p = 0.016). For both groups, there were significant increases over time for depression (0.028), loneliness (0.012), and stress (0.005). There were no significant differences between the groups for these factors.