Navigating Challenges in Peer Support Work: Perspectives of Peer Supporters From a Stepped Care Intervention for Older Adults With Depressive Symptoms.

Background: Serving as peer supporters in later life has been linked to a greater sense of purpose and meaning in life. How the wisdom of older adults could be leveraged to improve the implementation of peer support work, however, has rarely been considered. We aimed to examine the perspectives of peer supporters in this study, including the challenges they encountered in practice and the strategies they developed to navigate their roles.

Methods: A series of semi-structured focus group interviews was conducted with 23 peer supporters (mean age = 66.2 years, SD = 7.1) in a community-based stepped-care intervention service for depressive symptoms in older adults aged 60 years and older in Hong Kong. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis and discussed with peer supporters to ensure relevance.

Results: Three themes emerged to reflect challenges faced in peer support work: role ambiguity, boundary setting, and engaging with service users. To address these challenges, centring attention on meaningful engagement with users, managing expectations of users regarding the scope of peer support, and expanding the social networks of both users and peer supporters were prioritised. The importance of professional development through continuous learning and mentorship programmes, as well as creating user-centred environments, was also highlighted.

Conclusions And Implications: These findings suggest that older adults have the potential to actively navigate through service challenges by leveraging their internal capabilities and external resources. Integrating these insights into future peer support service design could enhance service delivery and empower older adults to become active agents of employment and care, thereby contributing to productive and healthy ageing initiatives.

Patient And Public Contribution: The JoyAge Peer Support network adopts a co-production and partnership approach to designing all services and research. The present work was part of an effort to ensure that the lived experiences and wisdom of peer supporters could be reflected in future service design. All findings of this study were discussed with peer supporters to ensure their relevance.