Abstract
BackgroundPeople who experienced a mental crisis are involved in providing care for others who face psychiatric hospitalization. The idea of peer workforce has been developed mostly in American and European behavioral health systems. Similar program is implemented to Polish mental health care. The purpose of the study was to find out if candidates for peer support workers with different levels of subjective well-being differed also in terms of general self-efficacy and in the ways of coping with stress.MethodsAs the problem has not been studied before exploratory study was conducted. The study covered a group of 72 subjects, 46 women and 26 men, aged 21–62 years (M = 41.43; SD = 10.37), former psychiatric patients, preparing for a peer worker role. We used the following questionnaires: Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being (PWB) Scales, in the Polish adaptation by Krok, the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) by Schwarzer and Jerusalem, in adaptation by Schwarzer, Jerusalem and Juczyński and Brief-COPE by Carver, in adaptation by Juczyński and Ogińska-Bulik.ResultsThe results of cluster analysis pointed to the existence of two groups of individuals with significantly different levels of subjective well-being. Then MANOVA was used. It was determined that individuals with a higher level of well-being were characterized by a higher level of self-efficacy, a higher tendency to use positive reframing strategy and propensity towards active behavior when coping with stress, as well as by a lower propensity towards self-blaming and behavioral disengagement.ConclusionsThe study demonstrates that further empirical explorations are justified. The results also encourage a search for some more possible conditions of well-being. It would be advisable to train candidates for mental health peer workers by focusing on the strengthening of their subjective well being and developing active forms of coping with stress.
Highlights
People who experienced a mental crisis are involved in providing care for others who face psychiatric hospitalization
The aim of the training program is to build the peer worker (PW)’ abilities in providing support and educating others with regard to healthy lifestyle or mental hygiene and to help them to lead meaningful lives in the community. Similar to countries such as the USA [1, 6], Germany, UK, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden [7], Canada, Australia, New Zealand [8] “Experienced Involvement” (EX-IN, peer counselling) programs are predicated on the notion that people with similar experiences can support each other in situations of emotional stress. It was Harry Stack Sullivan who first recruited people recovering from schizophrenia to become his assistants at the clinic for people affected by schizophrenia and nowadays the development of peer supporting in mental health services has spread to Asia, South America and Africa [9]
Peer support is usually provided independent of conventional mental healthcare, the idea in Poland is that candidates for PWs, after taking the training, would be formally offered a job and become a part of the health system structure
Summary
People who experienced a mental crisis are involved in providing care for others who face psychiatric hospitalization. The aim of the training program is to build the PW’ abilities in providing support and educating others with regard to healthy lifestyle or mental hygiene and to help them to lead meaningful lives in the community. Similar to countries such as the USA [1, 6], Germany, UK, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden [7], Canada, Australia, New Zealand [8] “Experienced Involvement” (EX-IN, peer counselling) programs are predicated on the notion that people with similar experiences can support each other in situations of emotional stress. Peer support is usually provided independent of conventional mental healthcare, the idea in Poland is that candidates for PWs, after taking the training, would be formally offered a job and become a part of the health system structure
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