Individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness in mental healthcare: a scoping review of concepts and linguistic network visualisation

Abstract

Background Targeted mental health interventions are increasingly described as individualised, personalised or person-centred approaches. However, the definitions for these terms vary significantly. Their interchangeable use prevents operationalisations and measures.Objective This scoping review provides a synthesis of key concepts, definitions and the language used in the context of these terms in an effort to delineate their use for future research.Study selection and analysis Our search on PubMed, EBSCO and Cochrane provided 2835 relevant titles. A total of 176 titles were found eligible for extracting data. A thematic analysis was conducted to synthesise the underlying aspects of individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness. Network visualisations of co-occurring words in 2625 abstracts were performed using VOSViewer.Findings Overall, 106 out of 176 (60.2%) articles provided concepts for individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness. Studies using person-centredness provided a conceptualisation more often than the others. A thematic analysis revealed medical, psychological, sociocultural, biological, behavioural, economic and environmental dimensions of the concepts. Practical frameworks were mostly found related to person-centredness, while theoretical frameworks emerged in studies on personalisation. Word co-occurrences showed common psychiatric words in all three network visualisations, but differences in further contexts.Conclusions and clinical implications The use of individualisation, personalisation and person-centredness in mental healthcare is multifaceted. While individualisation was the most generic term, personalisation was often used in biomedical or technological studies. Person-centredness emerged as the most well-defined concept, with many frameworks often related to dementia care. We recommend that the use of these terms follows a clear definition within the context of their respective disorders, treatments or medical settings.Scoping review registration Open Science Framework: osf.io/uatsc.