Peer support reduces hospital readmissions for mental health crises, shows study

Self management training provided by peer workers with personal experience of mental illness significantly reduced readmission to mental health crisis units in patients discharged from acute mental healthcare, a randomised controlled trial has found.1

The lead author, Sonia Johnson, professor of social and community psychiatry at University College London, UK, said, “People discharged from community crisis services are often readmitted to acute care. Not only does this impede recovery but it also consumes resources that might otherwise be dedicated to longer term improvements in functioning and quality of life.”

Over half of people currently admitted to acute mental healthcare in the UK are readmitted …