The study, published in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, analysed data from 24 systematic reviews of single-session mental health and behavioral health interventions. Single-session interventions are a structured program that involves a single visit or encounter with a clinic, healthcare professional or program, according to a Feb. 25 system news release. The National Alliance on Mental Illness found that nearly half of people with mental health needs do not seek treatment, and if they do, many access services only once.
The study found that 83% of patients who participated in an intervention had a positive effect for one or more of the following: anxiety, depression, externalizing problems, eating problems, substance use, and treatment engagement or uptake.
“I don’t believe that single-session interventions should replace any other kinds of support that already exist in our mental healthcare ecosystem,” lead author Jessica Schleider, PhD, associate professor of medical social sciences in the divisions of intervention science and implementation science, said in the release. “But I do think that single-session interventions, because of how scalable they are, especially digital, self-guided, single-session interventions, are really poised to fill these untouched gaps in the mental healthcare system that high-intensity treatments like weekly psychotherapy delivered by professionals were never built to address.”