There also needs to be greater attention paid to the factors common across psychotherapeutic approaches and the guiding principles of therapeutic change and processes, rather than to specific empirically supported treatments or even treatment guidelines 61, 66. Training can occur during a specific period or be part of life-long learning, and typically includes didactics, manual review, practice, and supervised experience, often in groups and with review of actual case materials, as well as training to become a trainer. Therapist variables must be considered, including individual attributes such as training, clinical experience, theoretical orientation, and therapist attitudes towards EBP 61, 62. For example, the Seeking Safety protocol addresses post-traumatic stress disorder and comorbid substance use disorder .

What Does “Evidence-Based” Mean in Therapy?

• Also, the NHS is nonprofit so all services are free to patients and funds within the NHS are spent on health care.
• The details of the studies, interventions used, and outcomes have been provided in Supplementary Table 1.
• Most evidence-based psychotherapies are designed for single-diagnosis conditions, while the reality is that many patients have multiple comorbid conditions that all require treatment .
• As Kindig (85) describes in his review of “population health terminology,” a population “refers to a group of individuals, in contrast to the individuals themselves, organized into many different units of analysis” (p. 142).
• Regular exercise has many mental health and emotional benefits too.

These findings illustrate how differences in intervention duration, population size, and context influence reported outcomes and highlight the importance of tailoring apps used to specific settings and populations. Apps that provide self-monitoring and self-help strategies enable users to begin addressing their mental health issues in the early stages, potentially preventing the escalation of symptoms . Our findings show that context engagement and cognitive change techniques are the most effective CBT methods for mental health apps. In contrast, the Mental App and MindSurf app did not significantly improve mental health.

Although the structure and function of public health departments vary across the United States, most operate separately from their jurisdiction’s mental health agency (see the sidebar titled Organizational Structure of Relationships Between Public Health Departments and Mental Health Agencies). Structural racism, a concept similar to structural stigma, has been shown to have major consequences for the mental health of Blacks in the United States (12). Policies that support structural stigma toward immigrants in the United States have been shown to negatively impact Latino mental health (70). Home foreclosures have consistently been found to produce consequences for mental health (141), and policies that prevent foreclosures—such as those similar to the federal Making Home Affordable program—could produce mental health benefits.

Population mental health surveillance and monitoring are essential to effectively designing and deploying population-based interventions to improve mental health (37), especially during periods of acute stress, such as disasters and economic downturns. However, these findings are in contrast to a review of earlier intervention studies that concluded that there was limited evidence to support the mental health benefits of such built environment interventions (103). The National Committee for Mental Hygiene, formed by social reformers and reform-minded psychiatrists such as Adolf Meyer, considered one of the founders of modern psychiatry, helped shift the national debate about mental health care away from its sole focus on asylum-based treatment toward public mental health and a focus on prevention and etiology. Population-based interventions must be nonclinical and thus exclude direct mental health services (e.g., psychotherapies and pharmacological therapies) to individual patients. As Eaton (52) notes, the field “must move beyond a narrow focus on clinical interventions to embrace the impact of community and population dynamics in promoting mental health, preventing mental illnesses, and fostering recovery” (p. 511).

How sleep affects mental health (and vice versa): What the science says

Further evidence of potential independent, additive and synergistic effects is needed to assess risk more precisely. Strengths of the evidence, challenges posed by gaps, and consequent priority needs in research on social connection While there are many strengths in our current body of evidence, gaps in this evidence may become barriers or limit our ability to translate this evidence into practice. However, smoking also would not meet this criterion for causality, since it results in many health outcomes as well (e.g., cardiovascular disease, cancer). While causal inference is challenging and much debate exists, several models that provide promising support for https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2156857X.2022.2072379 a causal relationship between social connection and health have been applied. Although there was variability across types of support interventions, the findings were consistent across patients being treated for cardiovascular diseases, cancer and other conditions.

CPH Mental Health Counseling: Comprehensive Support for Improved Well-being

The blended model of care has utilized IMIs to a varying degree and at various stages of the psychological interventions. Some of these studies also highlight the beneficial role of a multi-dimensional approach (68, 75) and interventions targeting early lifespan (76, 77). Furthermore, more of the studies were conducted and evaluated in the developed parts of the world, while emerging economies, as anticipated, far lagged in such interventions or related research. Although mental health promotion and prevention are essential aspects of public health with wide-ranging benefits, their feasibility and implementation are marred by financial and resource constraints. Facilitating the development and timely attainment of developmental milestones across an individual’s lifespan is critical for positive mental health (57).