Peer Support and Family Peer Support Services in Coordinated Specialty Care Programmes in the United States

The Early Psychosis Intervention Network (EPINET) funded by the National Institute of Mental Health includes 111 early psychosis programmes across the United States. This investigation examines the prevalence of peer support and family peer support within CSC programmes. We describe the settings in which peer support and family peer support are offered, as well as other contextual factors (such as policies and funding mechanisms) associated with offering peer support and family peer support.

A programme-level measure was used to capture services, the location of service delivery and funding for services at one timepoint. These data were linked with external state-level data to examine whether state policies were associated with offering peer support and family peer support.

Most programmes (80%) offered peer support services and 59% offered family peer support. The findings suggest that availability of funding sources and support on the state level may facilitate CSC programmes offering peer support and family peer support.

Although peer support and family peer support were not originally conceptualized as core CSC services, currently most CSC programmes in the United States offer peer support and more than half also offer family peer support, suggesting the need for more research to understand variations in service delivery and impact on outcomes.