Accessible Summary What is known on the subject Peer‐support services was started in the 1970s psychiatric survivor movement in the United States of America (USA) due to the lack of transitional support for deinstitutionalized psychiatric patients. Delivered by peer‐support workers (PSWs) with lived experiences of mental health conditions, peer‐support workers use their experiential knowledge to help others with similar conditions. The paradigm shifts in mental health recovery has led to an increase in interest on peer‐support services among the Asia countries. What the paper adds to existing knowledge? The diversity political and cultural differences in Asia makes it a unique for people to understand the mental health ecosystem that exist within. This review is timely as it provides the insights into the current state of peer‐support services for mental health consumers in Asia and the future research on them. What are the implications for practice? First, this review provided a broad overview on the current types of peer‐support services and their implementation in Asia. Second, emphasized the importance and value of peer‐support services for individuals with mental health conditions in their journey towards recovery. Third, important to build a more positive image for peer‐support workers by assigning more clarity to their roles and systematizing training to hone their skills in providing peer support. Abstract IntroductionThe increasing recognition and need for recovery‐oriented services led to the heightened interests of peer‐support services globally, including Asia. However, little is known about the peer‐support services in Asia as compared to the West, where peer‐support services primarily originated from and are well established. AimTo examine available evidence on the implementation of peer‐support services for such consumers in Asia. MethodThis scoping review was based on the Arksey & O′Malley's framework. A comprehensive search was performed across seven electronic databases. The grey literature was also searched through Open Grey and ProQuest Dissertation and Theses, alongside hand searching of the reference of the studies. Articles searched was from January 2000 to December 2021. ResultsThree main themes were identified to provide an overview on peer‐support services for mental health consumers in Asia: the delivery of such services in Asia; Asian consumers' perceptions of them; and factors affecting their implementation. DiscussionGiven their relative novelty in Asia, findings from this review represent useful insights for organizations and policy administrators when formulating such services. Implications for PracticeFuture research should also focus on evaluating the effectiveness of such services in Asia and comparing their outcomes with other regions.

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BackgroundPeer support workers are an important addition to the mental healthcare profession. However, much of the literature and knowledge of the peer support role is derived from western countries. This concept is relatively new in Asian countries.AimsThe study sought to improve the understanding of the barriers and facilitators of peer support work in a large psychiatric hospital in Singapore.MethodsThis study used qualitative data from a larger mixed-methods study. Thematic analysis was conducted based on the five steps recommended by Braun and Clarke (2006): (1) familiarisation of data whereby transcripts were read and reread, (2) generating initial codes, (3) searching for themes by gathering relevant codes, (4) reviewing themes and (5) defining and naming themes.ResultsFour subthemes under the broader notion of facilitators (supportive figures, defined role, opportunities for personal growth and identifying personalised coping strategies) and three subthemes under the concept of barriers (unclear role, hostility from non-peer-support-specialist staff and unsupportive working environments) were identified.ConclusionOur findings echoed those of previous studies conducted in western countries providing some evidences for the cross-cultural nature of these barriers and facilitators. However, the way their impact can be mitigated or enhanced is likely to be different owing to cultural barriers, such as the general consensus and acceptance of larger personal recovery ideologies. Further research is required in community settings to better understand the boundaries and limitations of our findings. This information will allow us to continue improving peer support worker integration in diverse mental healthcare settings.

The current study seeks to determine how peer support roles change as peer support specialists’ positions within organizations and departments mature. We followed ten peer support specialists over the course of a year, interviewing them at three points, starting approximately three months after they began working as peer support specialists. We used an inductive process to analyze our data and followed guidelines on the structuring of longitudinal qualitative trajectories to divide the data into watershed moments. Our participants worked in a variety of departments in the hospital, and their service use experiences generally echo those of their service users. Participants appear to pass through four phases over the course of their employment as peers: early beginnings, establishing the role, role narrowing, and role sustainability. Services wishing to integrate new peers must be aware of the time required for integration. Having general job descriptions limited to specifying that peers are expected to use their lived experience to support current service users may lead to uncertainty amongst new and existing staff. Without role clarity, peers may struggle to find their place. Pairing new staff with mentors may limit this burden. As roles consolidate, boundaries may emerge. If these boundaries narrow the role of the PSS, they may no longer find the role appealing. They may then choose other caregiver roles with wider or different spheres of influence. Organizations may benefit by clearly indicating if they expect peer support positions to be static or transitionary.

Background Despite health behavioral change interventions targeting modifiable lifestyle factors underlying chronic diseases, dropouts and nonadherence of individuals have remained high. The rapid development of machine learning (ML) in recent years, alongside its ability to provide readily available personalized experience for users, holds much potential for success in health promotion and behavioral change interventions. Objective The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing research on ML applications and harness their potential in health promotion and behavioral change interventions. Methods A scoping review was conducted based on the 5-stage framework by Arksey and O’Malley and the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews) guidelines. A total of 9 databases (the Cochrane Library, CINAHL, Embase, Ovid, ProQuest, PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) were searched from inception to February 2021, without limits on the dates and types of publications. Studies were included in the review if they had incorporated ML in any health promotion or behavioral change interventions, had studied at least one group of participants, and had been published in English. Publication-related information (author, year, aim, and findings), area of health promotion, user data analyzed, type of ML used, challenges encountered, and future research were extracted from each study. Results A total of 29 articles were included in this review. Three themes were generated, which are as follows: (1) enablers, which is the adoption of information technology for optimizing systemic operation; (2) challenges, which comprises the various hurdles and limitations presented in the articles; and (3) future directions, which explores prospective strategies in health promotion through ML. Conclusions The challenges pertained to not only the time- and resource-consuming nature of ML-based applications, but also the burden on users for data input and the degree of personalization. Future works may consider designs that correspondingly mitigate these challenges in areas that receive limited attention, such as smoking and mental health.