Predictors of outcomes for patients with common mental health disorders receiving psychological therapies in community settings: a systematic review.

Background: Psychological therapies are increasingly delivered in community care settings. In existing literature, patient, disorder and service variables are known to have a significant impact on the recovery outcomes for patients undergoing psychological treatment in secondary care. The aim of this review is to establish which predictors have a significant impact on recovery from common mental health disorders in community settings.

Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines to identify variables with a predictive power on psychological therapy outcomes. We searched databases using key words and MeSH terms and a strict scoring system and bias check were used.

Results: A total of 486 unique references were identified from the search. Overall, 19 papers met the inclusion criteria. These reported on a total of 34 778 patients from five countries in various community care settings. Predictive factors identified and found to be significant were initial severity and comorbid depression (11/19 studies), which negatively impacted outcome in all studies.

Conclusions: We identified key predictors for recovery in a community settings from five countries. The evidence currently available for this setting is limited, so this review serves as a starting point to highlight key factors that warrant further investigation.