Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, millions of Ukrainians have been exposed to war-related trauma, with projections indicating hundreds of thousands of individuals will develop debilitating trauma/stressor-related disorders. Ukraine faces a critical shortage of mental health professionals trained in evidence-based care (EBC) for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even fewer with expertise in implementation research. This study examined changes in clinicians' confidence in implementing evidence-based trauma care and conducting implementation research following a comprehensive training program. Forty-one Ukrainian mental health professionals attended a five-day training workshop in Lviv, Ukraine, covering evidence-based PTSD treatments and implementation research frameworks. Participants completed pre- and post-training surveys that assessed their confidence levels and perceived barriers. Data was analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests, multiple regression, and thematic analysis. Participants demonstrated significant increases in confidence in both implementing evidence-based trauma care and conducting implementation research. Training efficacy was independent of professional background and years of experience. Thematic analysis identified key barriers to implementing EBC and in conducting implementation research. Findings highlight the need for continued effort to address the identified barriers to adapting EBC in a Ukrainian context. This training model may serve as a foundation for developing a sustainable mental health workforce capable of addressing the severe trauma burden in Ukraine.

Minder is a mental health and substance use mobile application found to have a small but significant effects in a recent randomized trial. Poor engagement has been identified as a common threat to the effectiveness of digital mental health tools that is not accounted for in intention-to-treat analyses. The objective of this study is to conduct a prespecified secondary analyses to identify factors associated with engagement and examine the impact of engagement on trial outcomes.

PhotoVoice is a participatory approach that uses photography to offer a useful platform for sharing the stories of people with mental health conditions whose voices are often marginalized. This study aimed to explore the experiences of people with lived experiences and caregivers in constructing brief recovery narratives presented at training sessions that highlight their experiences before, during, and after mental health treatment.

Australia's mental health system needs to expand rapidly to meet the growing demand for care by young Australians. Participatory systems modelling (PSM) has emerged as a valuable method for guiding strategic decision-making in mental health policy.

Care coordination is commonly employed to assist individuals with mental health challenges [MHCs]. However, its implementation in mental health contexts is inconsistent. The term, 'care coordination' is also used interchangeably with integrated care and case management. This review aims to (1) consolidate the literature on how, and in what contexts, care coordination has been used to help adults with MHCs access care from more than one service and (2) describe the challenges and benefits of implementing care coordination for adults with MHCs from the perspective of service providers, care coordinators and service users.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth and young adults aged 15–24 in Canada. Emergency departments often serve as the first point of contact for identifying suicide risk, particularly for youth and young adults, partly due to the inaccessibility and unavailability of community mental health services. Almost half of the youth who die by suicide visit an emergency department in the year preceding their death, and up to 90% have untreated mental health and substance use concerns. Studies have found that parents describe youth mental health services as harmful, fragmented, inaccessible, and inadequate in meeting their children’s needs. Significant gaps remain in our understanding of the experiences with the systems of care for youth who die by suicide. Parents are uniquely positioned to provide vital insights, enhancing our understanding of the role that systems of care play in addressing and preventing suicide. The aim of this study was to better understand how bereaved parents describe the systems of care that provided services to their youth prior to the suicide.

Over 14 million adolescents have a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder yet only 20% receive adequate mental health services. There is a critical need to identify accessible and effective pathways to treatment. School based mental health services (SBMHS) are an optimal setting for timely identification, effective management, and convenient delivery of evidence-based mental health care.

The implementation of interventions, digital tools, and policy plans in health systems research is highly complex. Proof-of-Concept (PoC) studies facilitate the development of these applications although they are rarely conducted or reported in mental health research. This paper describes the principles and processes to conduct PoC studies in mental health systems research.

Mental health disorders are major public health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries such as Cambodia, where chronic shortages in mental health services and human resources exist. These issues are compounded for marginalized groups such as persons with physical disabilities due to their being at a higher risk of psychological distress and PTSD symptoms. The development of effective and accessible mental health systems in Cambodia will require evidence-based culturally appropriate mental health interventions. There are insufficient good-quality studies which have been completed to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of culturally appropriate mental health interventions in Cambodia. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a task shifted multi-component mental health intervention (named 'Friendship groups') at reducing psychological distress and PTSD, worry, rumination and increasing mindfulness among cohort of prosthetic and orthotic (P&O) service users.

Stepped Care 2.0 (SC2.0) and One-at-a-Time (OAAT) approaches can help address challenges related to accessing effective addiction and mental health (A&MH) services. OAAT services, available by walk-in or appointment, were implemented in New Brunswick (NB) as the first step in developing a provincial stepped care framework in alignment with NB's A&MH action plan. This study sought to evaluate the impact of online training courses in SC2.0 and OAAT service delivery on providers' knowledge, readiness, and capabilities to implement OAAT services in A&MH clinics, within the broader context of the provincial SC2.0 model.

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) allocate a disproportionately small fraction of their healthcare budgets to mental health, leading to a treatment gap exceeding 75%. To address this disparity, the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP), aiming to integrate mental healthcare into primary and community care settings. Central to this initiative is task-sharing: empowering non-specialist healthcare providers to detect and treat mental disorders. Adaptation and modification of mhGAP to the national and local contexts is an integral aspect of the guidelines.

Safe Spaces offer a person-centred, non-clinical and welcoming place for adults experiencing a mental health crisis to seek support as an alternative to presenting to the Emergency Department (ED). The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Queensland Health’s Crisis Support Spaces (CSS), which are a hospital-based Safe Space service that has been piloted in the state of Queensland in Australia.

Undiagnosed depressive and anxiety disorders may be widespread. The study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of undiagnosed depressive and/or anxiety disorders (DAD) among women in two low-resource countries, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Digital technologies can facilitate comprehensive mental health assessment of an individual's treatment needs, while also enabling data aggregation and analysis at the population or service level. The Service Needs Index (made up of clinical, psychosocial, and comorbidity components) collectively expresses a concise metric for the type, range, and complexity of young people's treatment needs. This study aimed to examine variation in the Service Needs Index across service settings and assess its potential to inform population-level mental health planning.

Length of stay (LoS) is a critical parameter of inpatient forensic treatment functioning. Inpatient forensic LoS in Czechia varies across hospitals with the number of patients per 100,000 inhabitants and the treatment duration. We aimed to analyse these inter-hospital differences and provide relevant sociodemographic and treatment-related data.

Several studies showed strong evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted mental health service use, with changes in emergency department visits, and psychiatric hospital admissions. It is not clear, however, whether the pandemic caused an increase or decrease in use of services for people with different diagnoses and symptoms.

Evidence suggests the use of a participatory approach for the improvement of TB care, however, there is limited evidence on how integrated depression screening and care could be delivered with TB services. Thus, this study co-designed an integrated care pathway for depression case finding and treatment in TB services, that can be delivered by non-mental health specialists within a low resourced settings.

Depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms are common among adolescents; however, studies exploring their relationship with chronotype in European youth populations is scarce. This study aimed to evaluate the association between chronotype status and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms in adolescents.

Perceived need for treatment is a first step along the pathway to effective mental health treatment. Perceived need encompasses a person's recognition that they have a problem and their belief that professional help is needed to manage the problem. These two components could have different predictors.

Poverty and mental illness are strongly associated. The aim of this study was to investigate the economic impact of implementing a district level integrated mental healthcare plan for people with severe mental disorders (SMD) and depression compared to secular trends in the general population in a rural Ethiopian setting.

Inpatient mental health care is an integral part of the continuum of mental health care in many countries, though it can be associated with challenges, such as reliance on coercive practices, negative patient experiences, and limited therapeutic options. Given these issues, there is a growing interest in exploring alternative approaches for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis. This research aimed to identify models which offer an alternative to standard inpatient mental health care across all age groups, both nationally and internationally, and to develop a typology for these alternative models.

Emotional symptoms have emerged as a major public health concern, affecting the mental and physical well-being of college students worldwide. Negative life events and mental health literacy are commonly recognized as significant predictors of emotional symptoms. However, research on their combined effects remains limited, particularly in longitudinal studies. This study aimed to investigate the interaction between negative life events and mental health literacy in relation to emotional symptoms among college students.

Most women living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries remain undiagnosed and untreated for depression. Even though depression has an adverse effect on treatment outcome and disease progression, less attention is given. The progression of depression is influenced by coping mechanism. The aim of this study was to identify the coping strategies used by depressed women living with HIV in Gondar town health facilities, north west, Ethiopia.

The sub-Saharan African Regional Partnership for mental health and capacity building (SHARP) study was a clinic-randomized trial of two implementation strategies for integrating depression screening and treatment into non-communicable diseases' (NCD) clinics in Malawi between 2019 and 2022. We report on the barriers to implementing depression care integration at SHARP study sites and potential solutions.

Little is known about uptake of mental healthcare services by homeless people and even less is known about those living in precarious housing. The "WohnLos" study determined the prevalence of non-secure housing (defined as homelessness or precarious housing) among inpatients of two groups of public mental health hospitals in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany.

Data from the World Mental Health (WMH) surveys on the coverage cascade has underscored the importance of perceived need for seeking treatment of mental disorders. However, little research has focused on treatment contact after adjusting for perceived need. We do so here in analysis of WMH data.

Chronic war exposure causes resource shortages, disrupts care for existing health issues, and heavily impacts mental health, increasing the risk of trauma-related psychiatric disorders. Using longitudinal data collected from psychiatric hospitals across Ukraine between January 2022 and May 2024, we aimed to evaluate the functioning and role of these institutions in delivering mental health care during the ongoing war.

High unmet need for treatment of mental disorders exists throughout the world. An understanding of barriers to treatment is needed to develop effective programs to address this problem.

Group Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), an evidence-based treatment of depression recommended by the WHO mhGAP Intervention Guide, was implemented through a task-shifting approach in Senegal, as a treatment for depressed people living with HIV (PLWH). Since a description of the resources used and the implementation costs incurred is necessary to inform policymakers better, this study aimed to estimate the costs associated with its implementation.

Health personnel lack a common standard for assessing lethality of suicide attempts. This may lead to inconsistent assessments and unclear reports about suicide attempts. We argue that the Risk-Rescue Rating Scale (RRRS) may help in resolving this problem. It is a measure based on observable indications of the medical danger of a suicide attempt and of the patient's efforts to avoid or achieve rescue. The instrument is a clinician-rated supplement to self-reports and can be administered in a few minutes and learned in a single brief teaching session. We adapted the RRRS for contemporary use in a Norwegian acute adolescent mental health service clinic. We developed a training program for clinicians, a user manual, and a series of five video-based role-played interview cases for reliability testing. In this study, we recruited 28 clinicians with professional backgrounds typical of Norwegian mental health personnel. They rated five role-played video interviews using the RRRS and the well-established interview instrument the Suicide Intent Scale (SIS) and obtained 140 sets of scores. We estimated the interrater reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]) to be .93 for the RRRS and .94 for the SIS, both excellent levels. Correlation was .80 between the RRRS and SIS items that were similar to the RRRS and .53 for SIS items measuring other topics, indicating good concurrent and discriminant validity. Adopting a common standard for communicating about suicide attempts can improve clinical practice, and the RRRS may prove to be a reliable and practical candidate for this task.