Cited by 727Mental Health Treatment and AccessChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentSchool Health and Nursing Education

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 140 of the 140 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 3 of the 102 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Prevention and early intervention in youth mental health: is it time for a multidisciplinary and trans-diagnostic model for care?

Open access
Colizzi, Marco, Lasalvia, Antonio, Ruggeri, Mirella·2020·International Journal of Mental Health Systems

Abstract

Background: Similar to other health care sectors, mental health has moved towards the secondary prevention, with the effort to detect and treat mental disorders as early as possible. However, converging evidence sheds new light on the potential of primary preventive and promotion strategies for mental health of young people. We aimed to reappraise such evidence. Methods: We reviewed the current state of knowledge on delivering promotion and preventive interventions addressing youth mental health. Results: Half of all mental disorders start by 14 years and are usually preceded by non-specific psychosocial disturbances potentially evolving in any major mental disorder and accounting for 45% of the global burden of disease across the 0–25 age span. While some action has been taken to promote the implementation of services dedicated to young people, mental health needs during this critical period are still largely unmet. This urges redesigning preventive strategies in a youth-focused multidisciplinary and trans-diagnostic framework which might early modify possible psychopathological trajectories. Conclusions: Evidence suggests that it would be unrealistic to consider promotion and prevention in mental health responsibility of mental health professionals alone. Integrated and multidisciplinary services are needed to increase the range of possible interventions and limit the risk of poor long-term outcome, with also potential benefits in terms of healthcare system costs. However, mental health professionals have the scientific, ethical, and moral responsibility to indicate the direction to all social, political, and other health care bodies involved in the process of meeting mental health needs during youth years.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This narrative review argues that youth mental health care should move beyond secondary prevention toward primary prevention and early intervention, using a trans-diagnostic clinical staging model and integrated multidisciplinary services for ages 0–25. It synthesizes evidence on risk factors, prevention stages, and service models to support a youth-focused framework.

Key findings

  • Half of all mental disorders start by age 14, and mental health problems account for 45% of the global burden of disease across the 0–25 age span; up to 1 in 5 people experience clinically relevant mental health problems before age 25, with 50% already symptomatic by age 14.
  • Childhood adversities are shared risk factors across disorders; a WHO survey of 51,945 adults in 21 countries estimated that eradicating childhood adversities would reduce any lifetime mental disorder by 29.8%, adolescence-onset disorders by 32.3%, and childhood-onset disorders by 38.2%.
  • The paper proposes a trans-diagnostic clinical high-risk mental state (CHARMS) paradigm to intercept a wider range of lower-risk cases beyond ultra-high risk for psychosis, including sub-threshold bipolar and borderline personality symptoms and mild-moderate depression.
  • Integrated youth services such as Headspace expanded from 10 to more than 110 centers, reaching about 100,000 young people per year, and models like MCPAP, MHSPY, Jigsaw, and Youth space show positive access, satisfaction, and functional outcomes, though long-term efficacy evidence remains limited.

Methods

  • Narrative review with a literature search in MEDLINE, Web of Science, and Scopus using terms describing risk factors, clinical staging, and multidisciplinary prevention and early interventions in youth mental health, with special attention to research from the past 25 years; some additional evidence was included if considered appropriate by all authors.
  • Studies were eligible if they assessed preventing strategies in youth in a trans-diagnostic and multidisciplinary approach; exclusions were studies not applying a clinical staging model for youth mental health in a trans-diagnostic framework, not investigating youth mental health service provision in a multidisciplinary framework, or primarily assessing older populations.
  • Main analysis was a narrative synthesis across the at-risk mental state concept, early-life psychosocial risk factors, prevention stages (promotion, universal/selective/indicated, secondary, tertiary), and integrated service models.

Limitations

  • The paper does not state a limitations section. Evident from the text: as a narrative review, it lacks systematic review elements such as PRISMA reporting, full search strings, and formal quality appraisal, so selection and synthesis may be non-exhaustive.
  • The paper itself notes evidence gaps: lack of studies assessing longer-term efficacy of collaborative care, especially in preventing poor outcome, treatment disengagement, and relapse; and absence of validated interventions to prevent multiple relapses.
  • It also states that vertical and horizontal integration of the enhanced primary care model with more specialized and intensive services is not covered in this reappraisal.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/s13033-020-00356-9

Cites

140 of 140 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Figures

Fig. 1 A trans-diagnostic clinical staging model to intercept a wider clinical high-risk mental state population
Fig. 1 A trans-diagnostic clinical staging model to intercept a wider clinical high-risk mental state populationCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 2 Summary of risk factors and pluripotent pathological trajectory for mental disorders
Fig. 2 Summary of risk factors and pluripotent pathological trajectory for mental disordersCC BY · PubMed Central
Fig. 3 Vertical and horizontal integration of the enhanced model of primary care for mental health
Fig. 3 Vertical and horizontal integration of the enhanced model of primary care for mental healthCC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

81 Not checked yet · 10 Own interpretation · 3 Supported · 1 No basis given

Verify all 99 references — free account

Show all 74 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 15
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 7
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
21 of 21
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Promotion and prevention in mental health are not necessarily the responsibility of mental health professionals alone.

    “Promotion and prevention in mental health are not necessarily responsibility of mental health professionals alone.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The mental health care sector has among its prerogatives the provision of effective interventions from early stages of illness to long-lasting conditions.

    “The mental health care sector has among its prerogatives the provision of effective interventions from early stages of illness to long-lasting conditions.”
2 of 2

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 140 references

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. WHO. Mental health action plan 2013–2020. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2013.
  2. Birchwood M. Youth space and youth mental health. Eur Psychiatry. 2018;48:S7.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 301–400 of 726

Metadata

Authors
Colizzi, M., Lasalvia, A., & Ruggeri, M.
Affiliations
University of Verona (IT)
Corresponding author
Colizzi, Marco
Venue
International Journal of Mental Health Systems
Published
2020-03-24
Volume
14
Issue
1
Pages
23-23
ISSN
1752-4458 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3013568653
Cited by
727
References
140
Citations by year
2026: 153 · 2025: 185 · 2024: 188 · 2023: 101 · 2022: 70 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 8
FWCI
8.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • International Journal of Mental Health Systems (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Institutional Research Information System (Università degli Studi di Trento) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Institutional Research Information System (University of Udine) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › School Health and Nursing Education
Keywords
youth mental health, mental health prevention, early intervention, primary prevention, mental health promotion, multidisciplinary care, psychosocial problems, unmet mental health needs, integrated mental health services

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

A language model drew the claims from the paper on 2026-10-09, under version 3 of the claim definition (model deepseek-v4.1-flash, prompt extract-v3).

A second model labelled each claim on 2026-10-09 (model jev-1.13-20260917, definition revision gold-guideline-v0.2).

Cited sources are checked with a language model’s help (gpt-6-sol).

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review