Peer Interventions in Severe Mental Illnesses: A Systematic Review and its Relation to Occupational Therapy

Abstract

Peer support is one of the pillars of the recovery model in mental health care. The purpose is to specify the interventions performed by peer support workers (PSWs) and identify the outcomes in terms of the occupational therapy (OT) process with statistical incidence. A systematic review of the peer-to-peer technique in OT was carried out using the PRISMA guidelines and searching scientific databases. The results were ordered according to the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework-4, finding significant positive results in 7 of the 10 outcome categories. PSWs can be essential partners in achieving the goals of the OT program.

Keywords:

• Peer support
• mental health recovery
• systematic review
• severe mental illnesses
• occupational therapy research

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Fundació Althaia-Xarxa Assistencial i Universitària de Manresa, MOSAIC Project and the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia for offering us the time and space to write this article.

Author contributions

All authors declare that is original work and that they meet the criteria for authorship. Ivan Cano designed the study, extracted the data, conducted the analyses, and wrote the manuscript. Gemma Prat and Salvador Simó conducted the analyses. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants] under Grant [number 2019-DI-012].