Our research work about a typology of peer support components is now published (full text here). This systematised review and expert consultation was a rather large project involving more than 20 experts who went through two sets of consultation. In the end, we were able to identify 16 components in peer support, which will be useful to further research about peer support.
Peer support is relational work, facilitated by peer support workers who have lived experience of mental health problems and recovery. They share their own experience, aiming to help people who are currently experiencing mental health problems. Through the relationship with peer support workers, people with mental health problems feel hopeful about their own recovery and learn helpful information for recovery from the peer support workers.
Peer support has been used in mental health policies in many countries, but how that works remains to be assessed. So, as a first step, we identified components in peer support work. Components mean things that seem to affect an outcome of interest, so this time it was mental health recovery.
We have reviewed 42 publications including trial reports, training manuals and change model papers. Each publication was reviewed carefully, and 242 components were initially identified (see the supplementary information of the paper). Those initial components were thematically organised into 16 components. You can see those components in Table 1 in the paper.
Using this typology, we are now conducting a more rigorous analysis to find out which components are particularly helpful. Hope our findings will help researchers, practitioners and people with mental health problems.