Peer Support

Peer support interventions are largely defined as interventions that are led by students, for students. This may include peer learning, peer support groups or peer mentoring interventions, all of which will be facilitated by fellow students or peers by experience.

Many peer support interventions work by reducing the risks of negative experience of university, such as stress and isolation. For example, peer support programmes help to increase a sense of belonging and thereby reduce the risks of social isolation, anxiety and depression. (Hughes and Spanner, 2019, pp. 51-52).

Facilitators may have some prior training and most often are provided with some additional supervision. This can be an intervention appropriate for a wide range of difficulties. It is often seen as an accessible solution that balances out hierarchical imbalances in support groups led by professionals. These interventions require a significant amount of support and may differ greatly in the way in which they are organised and monitored.

The literature shows that there is some causal of medium and emerging 

strength. The majority of these studies have a mixed impact. This means that there is a combination of studies with significant and non-significant results, whether positive or negative. There are 5 causal studies from the UK supporting the effectiveness of peer support interventions. This means that we can say that there is medium evidence to suggest that this intervention effectively supports student mental health.

Currently, we don’t have enough evidence on the efficacy of this intervention to make statements about which features are important. 

For more guidance, please see the Mental Health Charter under the “Live” domain. Other examples of interventions of this type can be found in our case studies [LINK TBC].

There is limited evidence on peer support interventions targeted at students transitioning from school into university.

There is some evidence on peer support interventions that specifically target postgraduate or undergraduate students. 

Though there is some evidence, there is a lack of strong, causal evidence measuring student outcomes as well as mental health outcomes for peer support interventions. This means that studies done with larger sample sizes in UK universities are needed to inform the effectiveness of these interventions.

The majority of studies in the existing literature are from outside the UK.

Causal Studies

Short, E., Kinman, G. and Baker, S., (2010) Evaluating the impact of a peer coaching intervention on wellbeing amongst psychology undergraduate students. International Coaching Psychology Review, 5(1), 27-35.

Short, E., Kinman, G. and Baker, S., (2010) Evaluating the impact of a peer coaching intervention on wellbeing amongst psychology undergraduate students. International Coaching Psychology Review, 5(1), 27-35.

Bosmans, D., Thompson, R.K. and Young, E., (2019) Does PAL work? An exploration of affect amongst First-year HE in FE students. Athens Journal of Education, 6(1), 13-32.

Bosmans, D., Thompson, R.K. and Young, E., (2019) Does PAL work? An exploration of affect amongst First-year HE in FE students. Athens Journal of Education, 6(1), 13-32.

Freeman, E., Barker, C. and Pistrang, N., (2008) Outcome of an online mutual support group for college students with psychological problems. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(5), 591-593.

Information and Guidance

Hughes, G. & Spanner, L. (2019). The University Mental Health Charter. Leeds: Student Minds.