The Lancet Psychiatry Report
People are missing out on mental healthcare due to system gaps – new report released from The Lancet
Many people who could benefit from mental healthcare services are not receiving them, a new report from The Lancet Psychiatry says.
The special report published today sets out what needs to be done to close the gap between what research says can work in mental healthcare and why so many interventions either don’t work in the real world, or cannot be scaled to help more people.
Professor Jeffrey Braithwaite, Founding Director of the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, is the only Australian on the Commission set up by The Lancet to investigate approaches to delivering mental healthcare, globally.
Worldwide, one in eight people – 970 million – live with mental ill health.
According to the WHO, between 76 per cent and 85 per cent of people with severe mental illness in low- and middle-income countries receive no treatment for their mental health conditions. In high-income countries, around 50 per cent of people do not receive treatment. Beyond Blue report that in Australia only half of people with a mental health condition seek professional help.
“We urgently need to deliver effective mental health services to more people,” Professor Braithwaite says.
“In Australia, we are seeing a rise in mental distress and disorders across all age groups, but most markedly in young people.
“This increase in anxiety, depression and existential dread among young people is largely due to the perfect storm of concerns: climate change, cost of living, world conflict, and residual stress from the COVID lockdown periods.”
As an international expert on improving the uptake of research evidence into effective practice, Professor Braithwaite co-leads The Lancet Commission’s work on how to ensure findings from research translate into programs and services that work in the real world.
“Most people who could benefit from mental healthcare services do not receive them, and this is particularly acute for people from disadvantaged circumstances, such as for those with lower incomes or less education, and those who have been in the criminal justice system,” he says.
“People in developing economies, with fewer resources available to mental healthcare, are even more at risk of not getting the care they need.
To improve the delivery of mental healthcare services, we need to recognise that mental ill health can arise at any time in a person’s life, in any circumstance, and for a huge variety of reasons.
“With this in mind, we cannot devise one-size-fits-all solutions and expect them to work. We also can’t expect that a solution that works in a controlled research environment will necessarily work in the real world.”
To ensure more people have access to services, mental healthcare needs to be integrated into not only the primary healthcare system – with GPs for instance – and the broader health system, but also into the education, criminal justice, and economic systems.
Professor Braithwaite says researchers and clinicians developing new services and techniques to improve mental healthcare need to be constantly thinking about how those new services will be delivered in the real world, and involving people with lived experience and communities throughout the entire research, development and implementation process.
“The work of The Lancet Commission is not only groundbreaking – it is essential to ensuring mental health services are delivered in ways that are equitable and effective and can be sustained over the long term,” he says.
“There is much work to do, but with this report we now have a blueprint for change. That is daunting – and exciting.”
Reference
Emma E McGinty, Margarita Alegria, Rinad S Beidas, Jeffrey Braithwaite, Lola Kola, Douglas L Leslie, Nathalie Moise, Bernardo Mueller, Harold A Pincus, Rahul Shidhaye, Kosali Simon, Sara J Singer, Elizabeth A Stuart, Matthew D Eisenberg (2024). The Lancet Psychiatry Commission: transforming mental health implementation research. Doi: thelancetpsych-D-23-01023R2 S2215-0366(24)00040-3
Professor Jeffey Braithwaite is available for interview, please contact chrissy.clay@mq.edu.au
CENTRES RELATED TO THIS NEWS
Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Chrissy Clay, Media and Research Outreach Coordinator
Follow us on Twitter @AIHI_MQ