Peer support

Abstract

Peer support (PS) links people living with a chronic disease or condition with those who share knowledge and experience that others, including many health workers, do not have. PS provides practical and emotional support and encouragement of healthy behaviors. PS may be standardized around four key functions: (1) assistance in daily management, (2) social and emotional support to encourage management behaviors and coping with negative emotions, (3) linkage to clinical care and community resources, and (4) ongoing support because chronic disease is for the rest of one’s life. There is substantial evidence for the effectiveness of PS across a variety of chronic conditions and complex health behaviors. In particular, PS is valuable in engaging and benefiting those too often “hardly reached,” reaching populations, providing behavioral health care, and reducing avoidable, unwanted emergent or hospital care. Current work integrates PS with other modalities such as digital health as well as the Chronic Care Model and the Patient-Centered Medical Home. Development of PS in China demonstrates its cultural generality as well as its role in integrating specialty and hospital with primary care such as for diabetes. Important considerations include approaches to organizational integration of and support for PS, financial models for sustaining PS, and the continuum of PS from volunteers to full-time clinical staff as part of the health care workforce.