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Psychology as a science offers an enormous diversity of theories, principles, and methodological approaches to understand mental health, abnormal functions and behaviours and mental disorders. A selected overview of the scope, current topics as well as strength and gaps in Psychological Science may help to depict the advances needed to inform future research agendas specifically on mental health and mental disorders. From an integrative psychological perspective, most maladaptive health behaviours and mental disorders can be conceptualized as the result of developmental dysfunctions of psychological functions and processes as well as neurobiological and genetic processes that interact with the environment. The paper presents and discusses an integrative translational model, linking basic and experimental research with clinical research as well as population-based prospective-longitudinal studies. This model provides a conceptual framework to identify how individual vulnerabilities interact with environment over time, and promote critical behaviours that might act as proximal risk factors for ill-health and mental disorders. Within the models framework, such improved knowledge is also expected to better delineate targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions that prevent further escalation in early stages before the full disorder and further complications thereof develop. In contrast to conventional 'personalized medicine' that typically targets individual (genetic) variation of patients who already have developed a disease to improve medical treatment, the proposed framework model, linked to a concerted funding programme of the 'Science of Behaviour Change', carries the promise of improved diagnosis, treatment and prevention of health-risk behaviour constellations as well as mental disorders. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological models of mental disorders guide research into psychological and environmental factors that elicit and maintain mental disorders as well as interventions to reduce them. This paper addresses four areas. (1) Psychological models of mental disorders have become increasingly transdiagnostic, focusing on core cognitive endophenotypes of psychopathology from an integrative cognitive psychology perspective rather than offering explanations for unitary mental disorders. It is argued that psychological interventions for mental disorders will increasingly target specific cognitive dysfunctions rather than symptom-based mental disorders as a result. (2) Psychotherapy research still lacks a comprehensive conceptual framework that brings together the wide variety of findings, models and perspectives. Analysing the state-of-the-art in psychotherapy treatment research, 'component analyses' aiming at an optimal identification of core ingredients and the mechanisms of change is highlighted as the core need towards improved efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy, and improved translation to routine care. (3) In order to provide more effective psychological interventions to children and adolescents, there is a need to develop new and/or improved psychotherapeutic interventions on the basis of developmental psychopathology research taking into account knowledge of mediators and moderators. Developmental neuroscience research might be instrumental to uncover associated aberrant brain processes in children and adolescents with mental health problems and to better examine mechanisms of their correction by means of psychotherapy and psychological interventions. (4) Psychotherapy research needs to broaden in terms of adoption of large-scale public health strategies and treatments that can be applied to more patients in a simpler and cost-effective way. Increased research on efficacy and moderators of Internet-based treatments and e-mental health tools (e.g. to support 'real time' clinical decision-making to prevent treatment failure or relapse) might be one promising way forward. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Internet‐ and mobile‐based interventions (IMIs) offer the opportunity to deliver mental health treatments on a large scale. This randomized controlled trial evaluated the efficacy of an unguided IMI (StudiCare SAD) for university students with social anxiety disorder (SAD). Methods: University students (N = 200) diagnosed with SAD were randomly assigned to an IMI or a waitlist control group (WLC) with full access to treatment as usual. StudiCare SAD consists of nine sessions. The primary outcome was SAD symptoms at posttreatment (10 weeks), assessed via the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS). Secondary outcomes included depression, quality of life, fear of positive evaluation, general psychopathology, and interpersonal problems. Results: Results indicated moderate to large effect sizes in favor of StudiCare SAD compared with WLC for SAD at posttest for the primary outcomes (SPS: d = 0.76; SIAS: d = 0.55, p < 0.001). Effects on all secondary outcomes were significant and in favor of the intervention group. Conclusion: StudiCare SAD has proven effective in reducing SAD symptoms in university students. Providing IMIs may be a promising way to reach university students with SAD at an early stage with an effective treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Mental health disorders are highly prevalent among university students. Universities could be an optimal setting to provide evidence‐based care through the Internet. As part of the World Mental Health International College Student initiative, this systematic review and meta‐analysis synthesizes data on the efficacy of Internet‐based interventions for university students' mental health. Method: A systematic literature search of bibliographical databases (CENTRAL, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO) for randomized trials examining psychological interventions for the mental health (depression, anxiety, stress, sleep problems, and eating disorder symptoms), well‐being, and functioning of university students was performed through April 30, 2018. Results: Forty‐eight studies were included. Twenty‐three studies (48%) were rated to have low risk of bias. Small intervention effects were found on depression (g = 0.18, 95% confidence interval [CI; 0.08, 0.27]), anxiety (g = 0.27, 95% CI [0.13, 0.40]), and stress (g = 0.20, 95% CI [0.02, 0.38]). Moderate effects were found on eating disorder symptoms (g = 0.52, 95% CI [0.22–0.83]) and role functioning (g = 0.41, 95% CI [0.26, 0.56]). Effects on well‐being were non‐significant (g = 0.15, 95% CI [−0.20, 0.50]). Heterogeneity was moderate to substantial in many analyses. After adjusting for publication bias, effects on anxiety were not significant anymore. Discussion: Internet interventions for university students' mental health can have significant small‐to‐moderate effects on a range of conditions. However, more research is needed to determine student subsets for which Internet‐based interventions are most effective and to explore ways to increase treatment effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The majority of university students with mental health problems are untreated. Only a small empirical literature exists on strategies to increase mental health service use. Aims: To investigate the effects and moderators of a brief acceptance‐facilitating intervention on intention to use mental health services among university students. Method: Within the German site of the World Health Organization's World Mental Health International College Student (WMH‐ICS) initiative, 1,374 university students were randomized to an intervention condition (IC; n = 664) or a control condition (CC; n = 710) that was implemented in the survey itself. Both conditions received the questions assessing mental disorders and suicidality that were included in other WMH‐ICS surveys. The IC group then additionally received: Internet‐based personalized feedback based on subject symptom severity in the domains of depression, anxiety, substance use, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and nonsuicidal self‐injury; psychoeducation tailored to the personal symptom profile; and information about available university and community mental health services. The primary outcome was reported intention to use psychological interventions in the next semester, which was the last question in the survey. A broad range of potential moderating factors was explored. Results: There was a significant main effect of the intervention with students randomized to IC, reporting significantly higher intentions to seek help in the next semester than students in the CC condition (d = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.02 to 0.23). Moderator analyses indicated that the intervention was more effective among students that fulfilled the criteria for lifetime (d = 0.34; 95% CI: −0.08 to 0.7) and 12‐month panic‐disorder (d = 0.32; 95% CI: −0.10 to 0.74) compared with those without lifetime (d = 0.11; 95% CI: 0.00 to 0.22) or 12‐month panic disorder (d = 0.11; 95% CI: 0.00 to 0.22), students with lower (d = 0.37; 95% CI: −0.77 to 1.51) than higher (d = −0.01; 95% CI: −0.36 to 0.34) self‐reported physical health, and students with nonheterosexual (d = 0.38; 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.67) compared with heterosexual (d = 0.06; 95% CI: −0.06 to 0.17) sexual orientation. The intervention had no effects among students who reported that they recognized that they had an emotional problem and "are already working actively to change it" (Stage 4 "stages of change"). Conclusions: A simple acceptance‐facilitating intervention can increase intention to use mental health services, although effects, are on average, small. Future studies should investigate more personalized approaches with interventions tailored to barriers and clinical characteristics of students. In order to optimize intervention effects, the development and evaluation should be realized in designs that are powered to allow incremental value of different intervention components and tailoring strategies to be evaluated, such as in multiphase optimization designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]