Opportunities and challenges: a case for formal peer support work in mental health in a South African context

ABSTRACT

Objective

Peer support in mental health has gained much attention especially in high income countries (HICs). Peer support can be delivered informally or formally. Both informal peer support and formal peer support work in mental health (PSW-MH) hold promise for service users’ recovery and increasingly delivered in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) too, to overcome large treatment gaps between mental health care needs and limitations in services.

Method

37 semi-structured interviews and 3 focus groups with 14 service users, 12 service providers and 12 carers of service users at three tertiary psychiatric hospitals in the Western Cape, South Africa, were conducted. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results

Support as facilitator to recovery was generated as a theme, including peer support; described as beneficial for both service users and peer support workers.

Discussion

The benefits lead to the exploration of the opportunities and challenges for PSW-MH in the study context. While there is still a long way to go to the successful inclusion of formal peer support within health care services in South African contexts, we have discussed the possible ways in which such inclusion can be beneficial on various levels, if the challenges to PSW-MH are heeded.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer support work
• mental health
• LMICs
• recovery
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

We thank the participants for their involvement, without which the data and the results would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

The first and third authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. The second author is founder and CEO of the Global Mental Health Peer Network, an international organisation, consisting of lived experience advocates and which is a source of diverse lived experience expertise, uniquely positioned to provide lived experience perspectives and guidance in terms of the development and implementation of PSW-MH.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) in collaboration with the South African Humanities Deans' Association (SAHUDA) under project application number SDS17/1500. This work was further supported by Stellenbosch University's Consolidoc programme. The first author acknowledges that opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in any publication generated by the research are those of the author, and that the NIHSS, SAHUDA and Stellenbosch University accept no liability whatsoever in this regard.