The purpose of this paper is to validate peer support in mental health care.
Literature review and meta-analysis methodology are used.
The unintentional nature of peer support is a valid methodology for the understanding of mental health issues and mental health care.
The limitation is that peer experience should be accepted as a valued method for research.
Professional domains may not keep a monopoly of research approaches in mental health.
Peer support may mean more avenues for empowerment of mental health service users from peer role models who have unintentional acquaintance with mental health issues and care.
This research refers to ethnographic precedents to describe methodology relevant to twenty-first century peer support in mental health. It is original in valuing the unintentional participant observation acquired from experience of the mental health system.
