Overview of measurement-based positive psychiatry

Abstract

Background: Psychiatry has traditionally focused on studying psychopathology and treating mental illnesses to relieve symptoms and prevent relapse. Positive psychiatry seeks to expand the scope of psychiatry to broader aspects of mental health and well-being among individuals with or without mental illnesses. Positive psychosocial factors such as well-being, resilience, optimism, wisdom, and social support are central to positive psychiatry.

Aim: To summarize the emerging science of positive psychiatry, emphasizing the use of measures of positive characteristics and outcomes relevant to mental health.

Methods: Overview of recent research in positive psychiatry, focusing on measurements.

Results: Positive psychosocial factors are associated with better mental and physical health in diverse populations. Among individuals with serious mental illnesses, levels of these factors vary considerably, but positive psychiatry interventions can improve well-being and rates of recovery in at least subsets of the patients. A number of measures of positive factors and outcomes are available; most of them are based on self-reports, which have advantages as well as limitations.

Conclusions: Positive psychiatry has the potential to improve the health and well-being of individuals with or without mental illnesses. Further research is needed to provide clinicians and investigators with a full tool-box of validated measures for positive psychosocial factors and outcomes. These measures should be subjected to rigorous psychometric evaluation across populations to help clarify mechanisms underlying positive factors, evaluate their longitudinal trajectories, and examine the impact of interventions on health and well-being over the lifespan in different clinical groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Well-being
• mental health
• psychometrics
• psychological resilience
• optimism
• wisdom
• social engagement
• depression

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health, [5R01 MH094151-04,MH019934].