University students often experience numerous financial, social and emotional stressors that can affect their mental health. The Peer Support Centre (PSC) is a pilot project that was established to provide peer support to students in these stressful conditions. We wanted to investigate whether peer support is a viable form of support that would benefit university students. The objective of this study is to determine whether the organization was indeed providing a beneficial service to students and if it was fulfilling the needs of the students that visited the service. After a support session, students and peer support providers completed an anonymous questionnaire regarding their self-reported mental wellbeing using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) metrics, and Outcome Rating Scale (ORS). They were also asked about their experience with previous professional mental health services as well as their experience at the PSC. With the data collected from 1043 students and 797 volunteers from September 2016–March 2020, a program evaluation was conducted for quality improvement purposes. The PSC is used by students of different sexes, genders, and ethnicities. Students reported having a low ORS score, moderate anxiety as per the GAD-7 and moderate depression according to the PHQ-9. They find it easy to use and rely on it as an alternative form of support when they approach barriers that prevent them from accessing professional services. Lastly, the peer support providers feel very validated in their role and overall quite prepared and helpful when helping their fellow peers. The establishment of a student service that provides peer support would be beneficial to the members of a university/college campus.

中文翻译：

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加拿大大学以学生为主导的同伴支持服务的计划评估

大学生经常会遇到许多可能影响他们心理健康的经济、社会和情感压力。同伴支持中​​心 (PSC) 是一个试点项目，旨在为处于这些压力条件下的学生提供同伴支持。我们想调查同伴支持是否是一种有利于大学生的可行支持形式。本研究的目的是确定该组织是否确实为学生提供了有益的服务，以及它是否满足了访问该服务的学生的需求。在支持会议之后，学生和同伴支持提供者使用患者健康问卷 9 (PHQ-9)、广泛性焦虑症 7 (GAD-7) 指标和结果评级完成了一份关于他们自我报告的心理健康状况的匿名问卷量表 (ORS)。他们还被问及他们在以前的专业心理健康服务中的经历以及他们在 PSC 的经历。使用从 2016 年 9 月至 2020 年 3 月从 1043 名学生和 797 名志愿者收集的数据，进行了出于质量改进目的的计划评估。PSC 由不同性别、性别和种族的学生使用。学生报告 ORS 分数较低，GAD-7 中的中度焦虑和 PHQ-9 中的中度抑郁。当他们遇到阻碍他们获得专业服务的障碍时，他们发现它易于使用并依赖它作为一种替代支持形式。最后，同伴支持提供者对自己的角色感到非常认可，并且在帮助同伴时总体上准备充分且乐于助人。