A bridge to recovery: an interpretative phenomenological analysis with peer support specialists in Singapore

Abstract

Recovery-oriented mental health care approach is gaining acceptance in Asian countries, including Singapore. Following Western countries, Singapore started hiring peer support specialists (PSS) as part of mental healthcare services. The aim of this paper was to explore and understand how individual peer support specialists in Singapore perceive and make sense of their role given their unique perspective as both recipients and providers of mental healthcare treatment. Six PSS in Singapore were interviewed utilizing a semi-structured interview schedule. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Four superordinate themes were generated illustrating how PSS viewed their role: embracing and embodying recovery, balancing on a bridge, impossible without support, and helping to end stigma. Findings also illustrated participants’ awareness of the nature of the job and the role of PSS as still in the infancy stage. They embraced a recovery-oriented mindset despite experiencing stigma from professionals and/or their social support. The need to understand familial attitudes towards the PSS role is discussed. The limitations, contributions to the research, and several areas for future research are also outlined.

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“…Phenomenological approaches, with its origins in philosophy (Frechette et al, 2020) and part of the interpretative tradition in anthropology (Lock & Scheper-Hughes, 1987;Sobo, 2011;Witeska-Mlynarczyk, 2015), are now utilized by an interdisciplinary group of researchers in applied medical social sciences and humanities. Although specific qualitative phenomenological design methodologies vary, overall phenomenology in this study emphasizes the unique micro-level contributions of individual lived patient experiences to inform further and more comprehensive and/or comparative macro-level studies (Bradley & Simpson, 2014;Lake et al, 2022;Maggs-Rapport, 2000;Ng & Barlas, 2023;Ryninks et al, 2014;Smith & Osborn, 2015). The theoretical underpinnings of this research assert that a phenomenological inquiry, as articulated in the tradition of medical anthropology, elucidates the agency of the patient voice (Witeska-Mlynarczyk, 2015) in applied research that is concerned with revealing and addressing health inequities, in this case, access to mental healthcare for veterans living in rural regions of California.…”