Intended for healthcare professionals

  1. Education
  2. Peer support in...
  3. Peer support in chronic health conditions
Practice Practice Pointer

Peer support in chronic health conditions

BMJ 2024; 386 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-070443 (Published 01 July 2024) Cite this as: BMJ 2024;386:e070443
  1. Claire Reidy, health services researcher1 2,
  2. Emma Doble, patient and public partnership editor (Education and Strategy)2 3,
  3. Aimee Robson, deputy director improvement, primary and community care4,
  4. Partha Kar, type 1 diabetes and technology lead, GIRFT clinical lead, diabetes, consultant in diabetes and endocrinology, clinical adviser, international medical graduates, councillor 4 5 6 67
  1. 1Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  2. 2Patient author
  3. 3The BMJ
  4. 4NHS England
  5. 5Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, Portsmouth
  6. 6General Medical Council, London
  7. 7Royal College of Physicians, London
  1. Correspondence to C Reidy claire.reidy{at}phc.ox.ac.uk

What you need to know

  • Peer support can be particularly helpful at the point of diagnosis or during periods of transition in health or life stages

  • Peer support can be accessed face to face, online, in clinical or non-clinical groups, or through activities

  • Clinicians can collaborate with peer support groups by signposting patients to peer support, offering to attend peer support sessions, and helping with meetings

Most people living with a long term condition spend only a small fraction of their time with healthcare professionals. Someone with diabetes, for example, will spend three hours a year with a healthcare professional on average, and the remaining 8757 hours caring for themselves.1 Considering this limited time, and that 40-80% of medical information provided in health consultations is forgotten immediately,2 additional access to means of support could allow people to address issues not dealt with in traditional clinical settings.3 Self-management alone can be tiring, isolating, overwhelming, and tough on mental health.

Peer support offers a valuable way for people with chronic health conditions to learn to live with and manage the complexities of their condition day to day, giving them the confidence, knowledge, and support to do this.45 This article offers an overview of peer support, its place in long term condition management, and tips for discussing it with patients.

What is peer support?

Peer support is the connection of two or more people with shared lived experiences. It can take the shape of spontaneous or arranged one-to-one interactions, buddy programmes, or a group setting (table 1). Meetings can occur face to face (eg, coaching and information sharing), virtually (blogs or online communities, following tags or specific members of the community, or by accessing group talks or podcasts), or in formal groups (self-management education, semi-structured support groups, group consultations/clinics).

View this table:
  • In this window
  • In a new window
Table 1

Types of peer support

Peer support can be …

View Full Text

Log in

Log in through your institution

Subscribe

* For online subscription

Buy this article

Back to top