Population-level effectiveness of alternative approaches to preventing mental disorders in adolescents and young adults
Open accessAbstract
Preventive interventions that are effective in reducing the incidence of mental disorders in adolescence and early adulthood may impact substantially on lifetime economic, educational, and health outcomes; however, relatively few studies have examined the capacity of alternative approaches to preventing youth mental disorders (specifically, universal, selective, and indicated prevention) to reduce disorder incidence at a population level. Using a dynamic model of the onset of non-specific, relatively mild symptoms and progression to more severe disease, we show that: (1) indicated preventive interventions, targeting adolescents and young adults experiencing subthreshold symptoms, may often be more effective in reducing mental disorder prevalence than universal interventions delivered to the general population (contrary to the widely accepted view that a ‘high risk’ prevention strategy, focussing on those individuals with the greatest risk of developing a disorder, will generally be less effective than a whole-population strategy); and (2) the ability of selective preventive interventions (targeting vulnerable, asymptomatic youth) to alter the prevalence of mental disorders is severely restricted by an inverse relationship between the prevalence of significant risk factors for mental illness and the relative risk of developing symptoms.
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Indicated prevention approaches have shown potential to reduce subclinical symptoms or prevent onset of a mental disorder in help-seeking and community samples.
“Indicated prevention approaches have shown the potential to reduce subclinical symptoms or even prevent the onset of a mental disorder in help-seeking and community samples [28–31]”
From Efficacy of a transdiagnostic Internet prevention approach in adolescents (EMPATIA study): study protocol of a randomized controlled trial (2024) · cites this paper as [31]
The Discussion (page unavailable) says indicated interventions targeting young people with subthreshold symptoms have the potential to prevent progression to a full-threshold disorder. The paper presents a modelling analysis, however, and the cited passages do not show reductions in subclinical symptoms or outcomes demonstrated in help-seeking and community samples. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Digital screening tools for individuals at risk of mental disorders: a systematic review (Preprint)Preprint
Logeswaran, Y., La‐Torraca‐Vittori, P., Ahmed, M. W., Arribas, M., Wallman, P., Reilly, T. J., Capon, W., Aronica, R., Brodeur, S., Dusara, H., et al. (2026) · doi:10.2196/preprints.114283
- Authors
- Skinner, A., Occhipinti, J.-A., Song, Y. J. C., & Hickie, I. B.
- Affiliations
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Skinner, Adam
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2023-11-15
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 19982-19982
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10652005
- OpenAlex
- W4388698131
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 5.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- The Grace Fellowship
- National Health and Medical Research Council
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
- Keywords
- youth mental health, mental disorder prevention, universal prevention, selective prevention, indicated prevention, subthreshold symptoms, prevalence of mental disorders, risk factors for mental illness, adolescents, young adults
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Mental Disorders, Humans, Psychotic Disorders, Risk Factors, Young Adult
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