The Place of Person-Centeredness in Public Mental Health

Abstract

Introduction: Person-centeredness (PC) is emerging as a hallmark of the 21st century, applied to medicine and health and a growing number of fundamental areas of human interest and concern. Objectives: The present study aims to conduct a conceptual analysis and a review of the literature on the relationship between the person-centered approach and public mental health (PMH). Methodology: The conceptual analysis of the relationship between PC and PMH will involve ontological and epistemological considerations. The review of the literature on such relationship will be conducted with the assistance of Google Scholar focused, first, on the density of pertinent scholarly publications along four periods from 1979 to 2022 and, second, on the thematic content of the recent literature. Results: The conceptual analysis showed on several grounds the value of PC for better understanding PMH and for optimizing PMH actions. The review of the literature revealed, first, the sustained growth of number of scientific papers concerning the relationship between PC and PMH along four 11-year periods from 1979 to 2022, strikingly so between the 20th and the 21st centuries. The review of the thematic content of papers published in 2023 revealed the contributions of PC for better understanding of and more effective actions in PMH, along with the identification of promising person-centered methods and procedures. Discussion: The findings of the present paper resonate well with major recent statements on identifying important new public health concerns, such as loneliness, and promising health strategies such as the integration of clinical and public health services and the incorporation of person-centered approaches into optimized public health policies. Conclusions: The value of person-centered approaches for enhancing PMH has been elucidated and documented. The findings resonate well with recent broad perspectives in health care and public health recommending PC as a key pivot for addressing health and related human and social concerns.