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. 2020 Sep;47(5):795-843.
doi: 10.1007/s10488-020-01065-8.

Improving Mental Health Services: A 50-Year Journey from Randomized Experiments to Artificial Intelligence and Precision Mental Health

Leonard Bickman  1
Affiliations

Improving Mental Health Services: A 50-Year Journey from Randomized Experiments to Artificial Intelligence and Precision Mental Health

Leonard Bickman. Adm Policy Ment Health. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

This conceptual paper describes the current state of mental health services, identifies critical problems, and suggests how to solve them. I focus on the potential contributions of artificial intelligence and precision mental health to improving mental health services. Toward that end, I draw upon my own research, which has changed over the last half century, to highlight the need to transform the way we conduct mental health services research. I identify exemplars from the emerging literature on artificial intelligence and precision approaches to treatment in which there is an attempt to personalize or fit the treatment to the client in order to produce more effective interventions.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; Mental health services; Precision medicine; Precision mental health; Randomized clinical trials (RCTs).

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Conflict of interest statement

From the editors: Leonard Bickman is editor-in-chief of this journal and thus could have a conflict of interest in how this manuscript was managed. However, the guest editors of this special issue, entitled “Festschrift for Leonard Bickman: The Future of Children’s Mental Health Services,” managed the review process. Three independent reviews of the manuscript were obtained and all recommended publication with some minor revisions, with which the editors concurred. While the reviewers were masked to the author, because of the nature of the manuscript is was not possible to mask the author for the reviewers. From the Author: The author reported receipt of compensation related to the Peabody Treatment Progress Battery from Vanderbilt University and a financial relationship with Care4 software. No other disclosures were reported.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Domains related to precision psychiatry. Source: reprinted from Fernandes et al. (2017). Distributed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Model of precision psychiatry. Source: reprinted from Bzdok and Meyer-Lindenberg (2018). Used by permission of Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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