Prevention and mental health promotion interventions led by mental health nurses: A systematic review

Psychiatric mental health nurses play a crucial role in mental health prevention and promotion. However, despite being the largest professional group working in mental health care, evidence on the effectiveness of their interventions remains limited.

To synthesize the available evidence on mental health prevention and promotion interventions led by psychiatric mental health nurses and to assess the methodological quality of studies published over the past five years.

Systematic review of randomized controlled trials published between 2019 and 2024, following PRISMA guidelines and Cochrane recommendations. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus and WoS, supplemented by hand searching. The Jadad scale, GRADE approach and RoB 2 tool were used to assess methodological quality and risk of bias.

Fourteen randomized controlled trials (n = 1719 participants) of diverse geographical regions were included. Tertiary prevention interventions, primarily focused on individuals with severe mental health disorders, predominated (50%). Promising results were reported in 64.3% of the interventions, all of which were psychoeducational and based on cognitive behavioral therapy. Limited implementation of interventions related to the digital environments and to the community settings, particularly those targeting primary and secondary prevention, was observed.

This review highlights the predominance of tertiary prevention interventions led by psychiatric mental health nurses and underscores the need to expand primary and secondary strategies. Despite methodological challenges, the findings reinforce the strategic role of psychiatric mental health nurses in advancing evidence-based, person-centered care and in shaping public health policies.