Abstract
Within the ROAMER project, which aims to provide a Roadmap for Mental Health Research in Europe, a two-stage Delphi survey among 86 European experts was conducted in order to identify research priorities in clinical mental health research. Expert consensus existed with regard to the importance of three challenges in the field of clinical mental health research: (1) the development of new, safe and effective interventions for mental disorders; (2) understanding the mechanisms of disease in order to be able to develop such new interventions; and (3) defining outcomes (an improved set of outcomes, including alternative outcomes) to use for clinical mental health research evaluation. Proposed actions involved increasing the utilization of tailored approaches (personalized medicine), developing blended eHealth/mHealth decision aids/guidance tools that help the clinician to choose between various treatment modalities, developing specific treatments in order to better target comorbidity and (further) development of biological, psychological and psychopharmacological interventions. The experts indicated that addressing these priorities will result in increased efficacy and impact across Europe; with a high probability of success, given that Europe has important strengths, such as skilled academics and a long research history. Finally, the experts stressed the importance of creating funding and coordinated networking as essential action needed in order to target the variety of challenges in clinical mental health research.
Highlights
Mental disorders are among the leading causes of premature death and disability, creating significant social and economic burden in Europe [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
The present study provided further insight as to how meeting these challenges may play a role with regard to efficacy (i.e., the likelihood that addressing the challenge(s) would result in an effective intervention to diminish the appearance of a disease or its consequences or solve a concrete problem) and impact (i.e., the probability that addressing the challenge(s) would result in an impact for Europeans and/or for society, e.g., a decrease in disease burden, improvement of wellbeing, economic benefits, etc.) in Europe
The present study identified core priorities for the upcoming 10–15 years in the field of clinical mental health research based on European experts’ consensus ratings
Summary
Mental disorders are among the leading causes of premature death and disability, creating significant social and economic burden in Europe [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. One of the initiatives of the CR taskforce was to assess the opinions of experts with regard to gaps and challenges in this field by means of a two-stage Delphi survey. The first step in this Delphi survey was to gather information with open-ended questions in order to study the range of expert opinions [16] This approach showed that experts give priority to tackling the following challenges: (1) to design and conduct new intervention studies; (2) to understand the diagnostic and therapeutic implications of the mechanisms of disease; and (3) to conduct more research in the field of somatic-psychiatric comorbidity. The present paper aims to report the results from this second stage of the Delphi survey and to provide insights into the core consensus-based priorities, the proposed actions and the efficacy, impact, feasibility and unique European qualifications with regard to the identified priorities
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