Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment

Background: 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 hav...

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Autores: Harris, Meredith G., Alonso Caballero, Jordi, World Mental Health Survey collaborators
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2025
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/70697
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70697
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13033-025-00666-w
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Health professionals
Mental disorders
Mental health services
Perceived helpfulness
Perceived need for treatment
Substance use disorders
Treatment history
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dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
title Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
spellingShingle Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
Harris, Meredith G.
Health professionals
Mental disorders
Mental health services
Perceived helpfulness
Perceived need for treatment
Substance use disorders
Treatment history
title_short Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
title_full Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
title_fullStr Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
title_full_unstemmed Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
title_sort Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatment
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Harris, Meredith G.
Alonso Caballero, Jordi
World Mental Health Survey collaborators
author Harris, Meredith G.
author_facet Harris, Meredith G.
Alonso Caballero, Jordi
World Mental Health Survey collaborators
author_role author
author2 Alonso Caballero, Jordi
World Mental Health Survey collaborators
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Health professionals
Mental disorders
Mental health services
Perceived helpfulness
Perceived need for treatment
Substance use disorders
Treatment history
topic Health professionals
Mental disorders
Mental health services
Perceived helpfulness
Perceived need for treatment
Substance use disorders
Treatment history
description Background: 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. Methods: Respondents aged 18+ years with 12-month mental disorders from 25 representative household surveys in 21 countries in the World Mental Health Survey Initiative (n = 12,508). All surveys included questions about perceived need; 16 surveys (13 countries) included additional questions about respondents' main reason for perceived need-problem recognition or perceived inability to manage without professional help (n = 9814). Associations of three sets of predictors (disorder, socio-demographics, past treatment) with perceived need and its components were examined using Poisson regression models. Results: Across the 16 surveys with additional questions, 42.4% of respondents with a 12-month mental disorder reported perceived need for treatment. In separate multivariable models for each predictor set: (1) Most disorder types (except alcohol use disorder, specific phobia), disorder severity, and number of disorders were associated with perceived need and both of its components; (2) Sociodemographic factors tended to differentially predict either problem recognition (females, 30-59 years, disabled/unemployed) or need for professional help (females, homemakers, disabled/unemployed, public insurance); (3) Past treatment factors (type of professional, psychotherapy, helpful or unhelpful treatment) were associated with perceived need and both components, except number of past professionals differentially predicted problem recognition. In a consolidated model: employment and insurance became non-significant; type and number of past professionals seen became more important; helpful past treatment predicted greater need for professional help while unhelpful treatment predicted lower problem recognition. Problem recognition was the more important component in determining perceived need for some groups (e.g., severe disorder, people who consulted non-mental health professionals). Conclusions: Greater clinical need is a key determinant of perceived need for treatment. Findings suggest a need for strategies to address low perceived need (e.g., in males, older people, alcohol use disorders) and lower endorsement of professional treatment in some groups, and to improve patient's treatment experiences which are important enablers of future help-seeking.
publishDate 2025
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2025
2025
2025
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info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70697
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13033-025-00666-w
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70697
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13033-025-00666-w
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv Int J Ment Health Syst. 2025 May 23;19(1):17
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv BioMed Central
publisher.none.fl_str_mv BioMed Central
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
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spelling Pathway to effective treatment for common mental and substance use disorders in the World Mental Health Surveys: Perceived need for treatmentHarris, Meredith G.Alonso Caballero, JordiWorld Mental Health Survey collaboratorsHealth professionalsMental disordersMental health servicesPerceived helpfulnessPerceived need for treatmentSubstance use disordersTreatment historyBackground: 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. Methods: Respondents aged 18+ years with 12-month mental disorders from 25 representative household surveys in 21 countries in the World Mental Health Survey Initiative (n = 12,508). All surveys included questions about perceived need; 16 surveys (13 countries) included additional questions about respondents' main reason for perceived need-problem recognition or perceived inability to manage without professional help (n = 9814). Associations of three sets of predictors (disorder, socio-demographics, past treatment) with perceived need and its components were examined using Poisson regression models. Results: Across the 16 surveys with additional questions, 42.4% of respondents with a 12-month mental disorder reported perceived need for treatment. In separate multivariable models for each predictor set: (1) Most disorder types (except alcohol use disorder, specific phobia), disorder severity, and number of disorders were associated with perceived need and both of its components; (2) Sociodemographic factors tended to differentially predict either problem recognition (females, 30-59 years, disabled/unemployed) or need for professional help (females, homemakers, disabled/unemployed, public insurance); (3) Past treatment factors (type of professional, psychotherapy, helpful or unhelpful treatment) were associated with perceived need and both components, except number of past professionals differentially predicted problem recognition. In a consolidated model: employment and insurance became non-significant; type and number of past professionals seen became more important; helpful past treatment predicted greater need for professional help while unhelpful treatment predicted lower problem recognition. Problem recognition was the more important component in determining perceived need for some groups (e.g., severe disorder, people who consulted non-mental health professionals). Conclusions: Greater clinical need is a key determinant of perceived need for treatment. Findings suggest a need for strategies to address low perceived need (e.g., in males, older people, alcohol use disorders) and lower endorsement of professional treatment in some groups, and to improve patient's treatment experiences which are important enablers of future help-seeking.BioMed Central202520252025info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/70697http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13033-025-00666-wreponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraInglésInt J Ment Health Syst. 2025 May 23;19(1):17© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/706972026-06-12T07:21:37Z
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