Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of online recorded recovery narratives in improving quality of life for people with psychosis experience (NEON Trial): a pragmatic randomised controlled trial.

Background: The Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) Intervention provides self-managed web-based access to mental health recovery narratives (n = 659). We evaluated effectiveness and cost-effectiveness in improving quality of life for adults resident in England with mental health problems and recent psychosis experience.

Methods: Prospectively registered pragmatic parallel-group randomised trial controlling for usual care, recruiting from statutory mental health services and through community engagement activities, with a 52-week primary endpoint (ISRCTN11152837).

Implementing peer support into practice in mental health services: a qualitative comparative case study.

Background: Peer workers are people with personal experience of mental distress, employed within mental health services to support others with similar experiences. Research has identified a range of factors that might facilitate or hinder the introduction of new peer worker roles into mental health services. While there is mixed evidence for the effectiveness of peer worker delivered interventions, there are no studies exploring how implementation might be associated with effect.

COVID-19 experience of people with severe mental health conditions and families in South Africa.

Background: People with severe mental health conditions, such as schizophrenia, and their family caregivers are underserved in low- and middle-income countries where structured psychosocial support in the community is often lacking. This can present challenges to recovery and for coping with additional strains, such as a pandemic.

Aim: This study explored the experiences and coping strategies of people with lived experience of a severe mental health condition, and family caregivers, in South Africa during the initial stages of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Development of the UPSIDES global mental health training programme for peer support workers: Perspectives from stakeholders in low, middle and high-income countries.

Background: Peer support in mental health is a low-threshold intervention with increasing evidence for enhancing personal recovery and empowerment of persons living with severe mental health conditions. As peer support spreads globally, there is a growing need for peer support training programmes that work well in different contexts and cultures. This study evaluates the applicability and transferability of implementing a manualised multi-national training programme for mental health peer support workers called UPSIDES from the perspective of different local stakeholders in high-, middle-, and low-income countries.

Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of online recorded recovery narratives in improving quality of life for people with non-psychotic mental health problems: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial.

Narratives describing first-hand experiences of recovery from mental health problems are widely available. Emerging evidence suggests that engaging with mental health recovery narratives can benefit people experiencing mental health problems, but no randomized controlled trial has been conducted as yet. We developed the Narrative Experiences Online (NEON) Intervention, a web application providing self-guided and recommender systems access to a collection of recorded mental health recovery narratives (n=659).

Best practice guidelines for citizen science in mental health research: systematic review and evidence synthesis.

Partnering with people most affected by mental health problems can transform mental health outcomes. Citizen science as a research approach enables partnering with the public at a substantial scale, but there is scarce guidance on its use in mental health research. To develop best practise guidelines for conducting and reporting research, we conducted a systematic review of studies reporting mental health citizen science research.

Organisational and student characteristics, fidelity, funding models, and unit costs of recovery colleges in 28 countries: a cross-sectional survey.

Background: Recovery colleges were developed in England to support the recovery of individuals who have mental health symptoms or mental illness. They have been founded in many countries but there has been little international research on recovery colleges and no studies investigating their staffing, fidelity, or costs. We aimed to characterise recovery colleges internationally, to understand organisational and student characteristics, fidelity, and budget.

Who uses recovery colleges? Casemix analysis of sociodemographic and clinical characteristics and representativeness of recovery college students.

Objective: Recovery Colleges support recovery for adults with mental health problems, through coproduction and education principles. This study aimed to determine whether students at three Recovery Colleges in England were representative of mental health service users.

Methods: Gender, age, ethnicity, diagnosis, involuntary detention, and inpatient admission were extracted from clinical records.

Evidence-based Recovery Colleges: developing a typology based on organisational characteristics, fidelity and funding.

Purpose: Recovery Colleges (RCs) have been implemented across England with wide variation in organisational characteristics. The purpose of this study is to describe RCs across England in terms of organisational and student characteristics, fidelity and annual spending, to generate a RC typology based on characteristics and to explore the relationship between characteristics and fidelity.

Methods: All RC in England meeting criteria on recovery orientation, coproduction and adult learning were included.

Peer-led recovery groups for people with psychosis in South Africa (PRIZE): protocol for a randomised controlled feasibility trial.

Background: The available care for people with psychosis in South Africa is inadequate to support personal recovery. Group peer support interventions are a promising approach to foster recovery, but little is known about the preferences of service users, or the practical application of this care model, in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). This study aims to assess the acceptability and feasibility of integrating peer-led recovery groups for people with psychosis and their caregivers in South Africa into existing systems of care, and to determine key parameters in preparation for a definitive trial.

Predictors of engagement with peer support: analysis of data from a randomised controlled trial of one-to-one peer support for discharge from inpatient psychiatric care.

Background: A range of evidence for the effectiveness of one-to-one peer support in mental health services is emerging. Levels of engagement with peer support vary with limited studies showing few individual participant characteristics predicting engagement. Implementation factors that might predict engagement have not been considered.

Recovery Colleges Characterisation and Testing in England (RECOLLECT): rationale and protocol.

Background: Recovery Colleges are a relatively recent initiative within mental health services. The first opened in 2009 in London and since then numbers have grown. They are based on principles of personal recovery in mental health, co-production between people with lived experience of mental health problems and professionals, and adult learning.

Embedding coproduction in organisational culture and practice: a case study.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the challenges of coproduction at individual, team, service, organisational and system level and critically describes the work of one organization to describe ways in which coproduction can be facilitated.

Design/methodology/approach: This is a case study of the approaches developed (coproduced) within an independent not-for-profit mental health consultancy organization to facilitate coproduction at every level.

Findings: Although much is published about coproduction in research, there is relatively little guidance relating to coproduction in practice.

The impact of working as a peer worker in mental health services: a longitudinal mixed methods study.

Background: Peer workers are increasingly employed in mental health services to use their own experiences of mental distress in supporting others with similar experiences. While evidence is emerging of the benefits of peer support for people using services, the impact on peer workers is less clear. There is a lack of research that takes a longitudinal approach to exploring impact on both employment outcomes for peer workers, and their experiences of working in the peer worker role.

Peer support for discharge from inpatient mental health care versus care as usual in England (ENRICH): a parallel, two-group, individually randomised controlled trial.

Background: High numbers of patients discharged from psychiatric hospital care are readmitted within a year. Peer support for discharge has been suggested as an approach to reducing readmission post-discharge. Implementation has been called for in policy, however, evidence of effectiveness from large rigorous trials is missing.

Development of a peer support intervention to improve the experience and outcomes of discharge from inpatient mental health care: the role of experiential knowledge in a coproduced approach.

Objectives: Peer support is rapidly being introduced into mental health services internationally, yet peer support interventions are often poorly described, limiting the usefulness of research in informing policy and practice. This paper reports the development of a peer support intervention that aims to improve outcomes of discharge from inpatient to community mental health care. People with experiential knowledge of using mental health services-peer workers and service user researchers-were involved in all stages of developing the intervention: generating intervention components; producing the intervention handbook; piloting the intervention.

Initial Training for Mental Health Peer Support Workers: Systematized Review and International Delphi Consultation.

Background: Initial training is essential for the mental health peer support worker (PSW) role. Training needs to incorporate recent advances in digital peer support and the increase of peer support work roles internationally. There is a lack of evidence on training topics that are important for initial peer support work training and on which training topics can be provided on the internet.

Opportunities, Enablers, and Barriers to the Use of Recorded Recovery Narratives in Clinical Settings.

Recorded Recovery Narratives (RRNs) describing first-person lived experience accounts of recovery from mental health problems are becoming more available. Little is known about how RRNs can be used in clinical practice and clinical education. The aim of this paper is to enable implementation planning for RRN interventions by identifying determinants of uptake.

The mechanisms and processes of connection: developing a causal chain model capturing impacts of receiving recorded mental health recovery narratives.

Background: Mental health recovery narratives are a core component of recovery-oriented interventions such as peer support and anti-stigma campaigns. A substantial number of recorded recovery narratives are now publicly available online in different modalities and in published books. Whilst the benefits of telling one's story have been investigated, much less is known about how recorded narratives of differing modalities impact on recipients.

The impact of mental health recovery narratives on recipients experiencing mental health problems: Qualitative analysis and change model.

Background: Mental health recovery narratives are stories of recovery from mental health problems. Narratives may impact in helpful and harmful ways on those who receive them. The objective of this paper is to develop a change model identifying the range of possible impacts and how they occur.