In her new book, “Peer Support Services Reaching People with Schizophrenia: Considerations for Research and Practice,” Megan Evans, PhD, MS, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Department of Psychiatry’s Program for Recovery and Community Health, provides a comprehensive, nuanced view of peer support programs that serve people who experience psychosis.
The book provides an overview of the public health impacts of schizophrenia and psychotic disorders and is grounded in the theoretical foundations and historical context of peer support as it exists in behavioral health today.
Although peer support occupies a rapidly expanding role in the modern behavioral health workforce, there exists a great deal of diversity among approaches, complicating simple evidence synthesis. Based on a realist review of over 350 evidence sources, Evans proposes seven key components of peer support:
1) being there
2) assistance in self-management
3) linkage to clinical care and community resources
4) social and emotional support
5) ongoing support
6) shared lived experience and peer support values
7) systems advocacy
Considerable diversity in outcomes measured in peer support research further complicates answering the question, “Does peer support work?” The approach presented in this book will be useful as peer support researchers begin to untangle the more informative questions of ‘what works, for whom, and in what circumstances?’
Recommendations for successful implementation of peer support programs in behavioral healthcare are also presented.