Defining Digital Peer Support: A Framework to Preserve Core Values in the Rush to Digitize

What is it about?

Peer support (i.e., support offered by people with lived experience of a specific challenge) has been established as an element of mental health services internationally, having been promoted by people with lived experience and consequently included in policy directives. With an increasing shift to digitally based services, attention is turning to so-called digital peer support, driven by commercial interests—including those outside the traditional mental health system. Peer support has been recognized by researchers as heterogeneous, with much variation across implementations, such that traditional measures of effectiveness and acceptability may not offer useful results. The practice of adding “digital” to the words “peer support” therefore raises questions about what constitutes authentic digital peer support. In this column, we offer suggestions for a framework to use when evaluating services labeled as digital peer support.

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Photo by Sweet Life on Unsplash

Photo by Sweet Life on Unsplash