Facebook as a Strategy To Deliver a Peer Navigation Intervention for Recently Incarcerated Women with Opioid Use Disorder: A Mixed Methods Descriptive Profile

Recovery support and treatment linkages are critical during transitions from incarceration to community but can be challenging to deliver to hard-to-reach populations. This paper will examine Facebook contacts between peer navigators (PNs) and women with opioid use disorder (OUD) following jail release to explore women’s use of PN services, including purpose and content of Facebook messages. As part of a larger clinical trial under the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN), PNs provided OUD treatment navigation and recovery support for 12 weeks following women’s release from jail, using remote options such as Facebook. Facebook Messenger transcripts between PNs and participants were qualitatively coded by general and specific conversation topic, and described using quantitative measures (e.g., number of messages). Of the 231 women contacted by PNs through Messenger, 53.7% (n = 124) interacted with their PN. About a third of participants who interacted through Messenger (31.6%) were provided with resource referrals (M = 2.9 resources sent). Most conversations were coded generally as needs/struggles (70.7%) or successes (24.2%). Conversations most frequently discussed family, friends, or partners (15.8%), financial and work matters (14.7%), or housing (13.0%). Analyses indicated that PNs used similar supportive strategies over Facebook as they would in other modalities, including sharing lived experience and providing motivation or encouragement. Peer recovery supports are valuable for women, particularly at critical transitions, like jail release. Social media platforms like Facebook can be a viable strategy to engage participants and provide remote support, especially in areas that may lack in-person resources (e.g., rural regions).