Abstract
BackgroundThe literature suggests that many people in the general population tend to distance themselves from those with mental illness. However, there are volunteers that behave differently, spending their free time with people with mental illness and providing direct input in the form of befriending. Whilst there are a range of befriending programmes, little is known about who these volunteer befrienders are, and a previous review of different forms of volunteering in mental health care found data on only 63 befrienders.MethodsWe conducted a systematic electronic search of databases (BNI, CNIL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Cochrane Registers, Web of Science) to detect all papers reporting characteristics of befriending volunteers in mental health care published between 2011 and April 2018. The articles retrieved were combined with previous papers identified in an earlier review and with relevant papers identified by experts in the field. The articles that met the inclusion criteria were extracted and narratively synthesised.ResultsNine studies met the inclusion criteria for this review, reporting characteristics of a total of 577 volunteer befrienders. The most often reported characteristics were age and gender, motivations to volunteer and experience of the role. Whilst characteristics vary greatly, most volunteers are female, and the average age is 50 years. Motivations generally fit into the categories of “giving” and “getting” and experiences are mixed.ConclusionPublished research on volunteer befrienders has increased in the last eight years, but is still limited. The range of characteristics suggests that there is a potential for encouraging a variety of people to volunteer as befrienders for people with mental illness. Understanding the characteristics and motivations of volunteers may help refine programmes and improve the experience of the volunteer befrienders.
Highlights
The literature suggests that many people in the general population tend to distance themselves from those with mental illness
Results were combined with the studies identified in the earlier review [11], and one paper identified by experts that was unpublished at the time, but has been published since
Positive experiences generally centre around the impact of befriending on the befriendee and own changes in attitudes toward mental illness, while negative experiences related to feeling unappreciated by the befriendee or bad experiences with the befriending organisation
Summary
The literature suggests that many people in the general population tend to distance themselves from those with mental illness. There are volunteers that behave differently, spending their free time with people with mental illness and providing direct input in the form of befriending. Whilst there are a range of befriending programmes, little is known about who these volunteer befrienders are, and a previous review of different forms of volunteering in mental health care found data on only 63 befrienders. Some people seek direct contact and offer their free time as volunteers to support individuals with mental illness. A particular form of volunteering in mental health care is befriending [3, 4], where volunteers usually provide repeated, one-to-one and face-to-face contact to develop social relationships with people with mental illness. The literature suggests that volunteer befrienders can reap benefits as well, even outside mental health, such as being able to help others, gain experience, or develop a sense of satisfaction from befriending [8, 9].
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