Hand-n-Hand conducted a survey into the experience of peer support participants from 2020 to 2021, and the results were published in Australasian Psychiatry in December 2022. The study aims to understand the demographic of healthcare workers seeking peer support, and evaluate their experiences of peer support.
Overall, the vast majority of participants reported positive experience with peer support.
Hand-n-Hand's peer support participants ranged from very new to very experienced healthcare workers. The majority of participants have completed speciality training (60.6%).
Positive experiences were reported at different stages of the sign-up and linking process. 83.6% of participants found speaking to a HnH triage team member to be a good or very good experience. 77.8% of participants found connecting to a peer support group to be an easy process.
Encouragingly, a large majority (81.4%) of participants found their peer support experience with Hand-n-Hand to be good or very good. A large majority (88.7%) of participants were likely or extremely likely to recommend Hand-n-Hand peer support to colleagues.
Our participants reported that peer support helped them in many ways. Some top areas were:
Peer support provided "a safe space to vent about issues"
Peer support helped participants feel "heard and understood"
Peer support allowed participants to feel "less alone"
Thank you to Erica, Dan, Tahnee and Brett for your fantastic work on this project! Hand-n-Hand is always seeking to conduct more research on peer support to enrich our evidence base and provide better support to everyone who joins us.
Read the publication here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9527122/