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Developing ‘patient‐centred’ health services has become a goal in many countries but little work has been done to identify what research is needed to support the development of such services within mental health. The aim of this study was to consult all relevant stakeholder groups to establish research priorities for developing ‘patient‐centred’ mental health services in the UK. More than 1,000 stakeholders were consulted, including service users, carers and mental health professionals. The consultation identified 12 thematic areas requiring further research. These should be prioritised if services are to become more centred on the needs and aspirations of the people who use them.

The purpose of this study is to identify the knowledge and management skills of health-care workers regarding psychosocial and mental health priorities and needs of individuals with COVID-19.

This is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The data collected conveniently from 101 health-care workers in Jordan directly managing care of individuals with COVID-19.

Health-care workers have moderate-to-high level of knowledge and management skills of psychological distress related to COVID-19; means ranged from 50%–70% agreement and confidence. In general, health-care workers were able to identify mental and psychosocial health needs and priorities at a moderate level. Health-care workers knowledge had a positive and significant correlation with age (r = 0.24, p = 0.012) and years of experience (r = 0.28, p = 0.004), and a significant difference was found in their management between those who are trained on psychological first aids and those who are not (t = −3.11, p = 0.003).

There is a need to train health-care workers to integrate psychosocial and mental health care to manage care psychological distress related to COVID-19.

This study is emphasizing the need for mental health psychosocial support training and in integration. Health-care workers providing care to individuals with COVID-19 are not aware of mental health priorities and needs of their patients. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge adding more understanding about competencies of health-care workers providing care and their preparedness to manage care individuals with COVID-19.

It is nearly eight years since the National Service Framework for Mental Health was published, setting ambitious 10‐year targets. This article draws on findings presented in a recent Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report on progress to date. It concludes that although the framework confirmed the status of mental health as a health priority for the government, a likely shortfall in funding means that goals will not be met in full. The authors stress that this is not a criticism of policy; rather it reflects the ambitious nature of the government's mental health agenda.

This paper aims to call the public health and mental health communities to action by making women’s mental health a public health priority.

This conceptual paper introduces a “Female Psychology” approach to framing and interpreting mental health narratives and public health discourses. It also draws upon lifecourse research as a way of better understanding mental illness.

This paper calls for action to prioritise women’s mental health on the public health agenda like has never previously been done before.

New theoretical bases for research and practice are presented, encouraging the adoption of a “Female Psychology” approach to women’s lifecourses and mental health narratives.

Suggestions for changes to how we view, diagnose and treat women’s mental health are incorporated, ensuring women’s mental health narratives are placed firmly at the centre of their care and support.

Women’s mental health has long been marginalised and dismissed as exaggerated and/or insignificant, and therefore has not had the economic-, personnel- and time-resource allocated to it, which it so desperately requires. This paper aims to tip the imbalance.

This paper, though conceptual, offers “Female Psychology” as both a practical and pragmatic approach to improving women’s mental health research, practice, and care. It is the first of its kind to, so directly, call the public health and mental health communities to prioritise women’s mental health.

Mental well-being is associated with positive outcomes throughout the life course. This study aims to examine interventions delivered by allied health professionals (AHPs) to alleviate community stressors adversely impacting public mental health and well-being.

Review inclusion criteria comprised experimental and qualitative process evaluations of public mental health interventions delivered by AHPs. Electronic searches in Cinahl, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Library, were combined with grey literature searches of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence public health guidance. A narrative synthesis and the Effective Public Health Practice Project appraisal tool were used to evaluate the evidence.

A total of 45-articles were included in the review describing AHP-delivered interventions addressing social disadvantage, trauma, bullying, loneliness, work-related stress, transitional stress, intersectionality, pain and bereavement. No articles were identified evaluating interventions delivered by operating department practitioners or orthoptists. A conceptual map was developed summarising the stressors, and a typology of public mental health interventions defined including: place-based interventions, discrete/one-off interventions, multi-component lifestyle and social connector interventions and interventions targeting groups at risk of mental health conditions.

Many mental health conditions begin in childhood, and a strength of the review is the life course perspective. A further strength is compiling a compendium of public mental health outcome measures used by AHPs to inform future research. The authors excluded many articles focussed on clinical interventions/populations, which did not meet review inclusion criteria. While playing a key role in delivering public mental health interventions, clinical psychologists are not defined as AHPs and were excluded from the review, and this may be construed a limitation. Given heterogeneity of study designs and interventions evaluated numerical analyses of pooled findings was not appropriate.

The review highlights the breadth of community stressors on which AHPs can intervene and contribute in public mental health contexts, stressors which correspond to those identified in UK Government guidance as currently important and relevant to address. The findings can inform developing community public mental health pathways that align with the UK National Health Service (NHS) Long Term Plan, on prevention and early intervention to protect community mental health and well-being. Further can inform the NHS strategic direction for AHPs including informing ways of increasing utilisation of core AHP skills to optimise contributions in public mental health agendas.

It is surprising there were not more AHP delivered evaluations of interventions for other stressors important to address in public mental health settings, for example gambling, domestic violence or that used digital technology, and these are areas for future research. Future research should identify the most active/effective dimensions of multi-component interventions which could be informed by frameworks to guide complex intervention development. The relative paucity of research identified, highlights the predominant focus of research to date on interventions for clinical mental health conditions and populations. The lack of preventative approaches is evident, and an important area for future research to align with UK health and social care priorities.

The review highlights AHP-delivered interventions impacting diverse community stressors across the life course. The findings can inform developing public mental health pathways aligned with government health service priorities to protect mental health and well-being, prioritise prevention and early intervention and increase utilisation of AHP skills across public mental health settings.

In this chapter, I develop an analysis of the institutional logics which have shaped the organizational field of public sector mental health and which provide a framework for understanding the complexities facing policy makers, providers, researchers, and community mental health advocates.

I first assess the current state of public sector mental health care. I then describe institutional theory, which focuses our attention on the wider social values and priorities (i.e., institutional logics) which shape mental health care. In the current post-deinstitutionalization era, there are three competing institutional logics: recovery and community integration, cost containment and commodification, and increased social control over those with severe mental disorders. Each of these logics, and the conflict between them, is explicated and analyzed. I then develop a theoretical framework for understanding how conflicting institutional logics are resolved. In the concluding section of this chapter, I offer some guidance to both researchers and advocates seeking meaningful system level reform.

Researchers studying mental health policy need to understand how competing institutional logics work to shape the political climate, economic priorities, and types of services available.

Advocacy is critical for meaningful reform, and a fourth institutional logic – that of social justice – needs to be developed by which to evaluate policy reforms and service offerings.

Including the views of service users, carers and clinical staff when prioritising health research can ensure future projects are meaningful and relevant to key stakeholders. One National Health Service Foundation Trust in England, UK undertook a project to identify the top 10 research priorities according to people with experience using or working in services for dementia and older adult mental health. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Service users with dementia and mental health difficulties; informal carers, family and friends of service users; clinical staff working in the Trust. Participants were surveyed for research ideas. Ideas were processed into research questions and checked for evidence. Participants were then asked to prioritise their personal top 10 from a long list of research questions. A shortlist of 26 topics was discussed in a consensus workshop with a sample of participants to decide on the final top 10 research priorities.

A total of 126 participants provided 418 research ideas, leading to 86 unique and unanswered research questions. In total, 58 participants completed interim prioritisation, 11 of whom were invited to the consensus workshop involving service users, carers and clinical staff. The final top 10 priorities were dominated by topics surrounding care, psychosocial support and mental health in dementia.

Future research from the Trust and collaborating organisations can use these results to develop relevant projects and applications for funding.

This project has demonstrated the possibility of including key stakeholders in older adult mental health research priority setting at the local level.

The European Commission green paper Improving the Mental Health of the Population, published in October 2005, is essentially a public mental health strategy for the European Union. In this short article Jude Stansfield outlines the main elements of the strategy and discusses its relevance and implications both for the European Union as a whole and for policy and practice in England and the other individual member states. While the green paper is in many ways welcome in that it will raise the profile of public mental health at national and international government level, it has a number of flaws ‐ not least its primary focus on mental illness and mental illness services.

Recovery in mental health emphasises the empowerment of clients to discover and develop hope and a more satisfying life often in the presence of ongoing symptoms of mental illness. Work values that are incompatible with values that underpin the recovery philosophy may be contributing to the challenges in implementing recovery values in practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore the types of work values espoused by Australian mental health workers and their degree of congruence with recovery values.

In total, 65 Australian mental health workers completed an open-ended work values question. Leximancer content analysis was used to generate a thematic work values profile followed by a theory-led thematic analysis of the responses to assess congruence with recovery values.

This sample valued client-centred practice that supports recovery, making a difference in others’ lives, work competence, being caring and empathic, and meaningful work. Overall, there was substantial congruence between work and recovery values, with less evidence of endorsement of values relating to strengths-based approaches, personal responsibility, and positive self-identity. These values should be targeted in future training initiatives.

The current study is the first study to identify the types of work values espoused by Australian mental health workers and to examine the degree to which they are recovery-consistent. This is an important research agenda given the high national and international priority to adopt a recovery orientation, and the need to identify and modify potential barriers to the implementation of recovery-oriented services.

Mental health is an emerging health policy priority globally. The emphasis on closing the treatment gap in psychiatric services is now being complemented by an increasing focus on prevention and health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to describe the programmes and delivery of public mental health in England led by Public Health England (PHE), an arms-length body of the Department of Health and Social Care.

This technical paper outlines the general approach PHE has taken in delivering national work in public mental health and describes several key areas of work: children and young people, suicide prevention, workplace and workforce, strategic engagement with stakeholders, data and information and evidence synthesis.

A description of the various programmes and guidance documents that PHE have produced are described and referenced, which form a substantial body of work in public mental health.

The outputs from PHE may assist in informing the approach to public mental health that other government agencies could consider adopting. The resources described and signposted within this technical paper are publicly available for readers.

England is one of a small group of countries that have a track record in delivering public mental health at a national level. This paper gives a unique and detailed insight into this work.