How Can the Use of Evidence in Mental Health Policy Be Increased? A Systematic Review

Objective: The aim of this review was to explore what is known about the effectiveness of strategies to increase the use of research in mental health policies. Methods: PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PubMed and EMBASE were searched for peer-reviewed journal articles by using the terms information dissemination OR knowledge OR diffusion of innovation OR knowledge transfer OR knowledge exchange OR evidence based OR evidence informed AND mental health policy OR decision makers. Searches were limited to articles pertaining to humans, written in English, and published from 1995 to 2013. Studies were excluded if they did not include a component related either to mental health policy or to mental health policy and decision makers or did not describe the development, implementation, or evaluation of an intervention that included a component aimed at increasing use of evidence. Reference lists were scanned to identify additional papers. Results: The search returned 2,677 citations. Fifty additional papers were identified via reference lists of relevant articles. Nine separate intervention studies were identified that included a component aimed at increasing use of evidence in mental health policy. All employed at least three strategies to increase evidence use, mostly in regard to implementation of a particular evidence-based policy. Methodologies of the identified studies did not enable estimation of the effectiveness of individual strategies to increase evidence use. Conclusions: Little research has examined how to increase the use of evidence in mental health policy. Available research suggests a number of potentially effective strategies for increasing the use of evidence that warrant further examination.