The transition from patient to mental health peer worker : a grounded theory approach

Background: Peer workers are increasingly being engaged in contemporary mental healthcare. To become a peer worker, patients must evolve from having a patient identity to a peer worker identity. This study aims to understand how mental health peer workers experience their transition and how it affects their view of themselves and their direct working context.Methods: A grounded theory approach was used. Seventeen mental health peer workers in Belgium were recruited through theoretical sampling. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed according to the constant comparative method.Results: The results indicate that novice peer workers experience peer work as an opportunity to liberate themselves from the process of mental suffering and realise an acceptable form of personal self-maintenance. As peer workers become more experienced, they are confronted with external factors that influence their self-maintenance and personal development. Experiencing clarity in their duties and responsibilities, equality, and transparency in the work place reinforce their experience of self-maintenance and positively influence their self-development. Experiencing a lack of clarity in their duties and responsibilities, inequality and lack of openness discourage peer workers’ self-development process. This is because these experiences challenge their personal motivations to become peer workers, which are usually linked to building a meaningful life for themselves. A dynamic model was developed that illustrates the core processes in the transition of becoming a peer worker.Discussion and conclusion: These insights can encourage organisations to build up a supportive environment collaboratively with peer workers and ensure that peer workers can exert their authentically unique role in mental healthcare.