Evidence-Based Programs and Practices in psychological health
Introduction

Numerous years of research and studies in clinical psychology have illustrated that how individuals process received information, particularly with an attentional bias (AB) to scary information as well as bias in negatively interpreting vague information and data (interpretation bias), actually plays a huge part in the start and maintenance of depression and anxiety (Hughes at al., 2016). There is a growing interest in health psychology in the application of these experimental techniques to evaluate possible cognitive processing prejudices in health conditions like chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, cancer, and chronic fatigue syndrome together with health behaviors like smoking, eating, and alcohol abuse. Experimental studies in these fields could inform hypothetical development by allowing access to types and levels of information and data processing that might underpin unhelpful disease representation and manipulate health behaviors. Therefore, this paper is a study that aims to review evidence-based practices and programs within psychological health via literature review on various studies that exist on this matter.

Background

When it comes to the treatment and management of depressive disorders, psychological interventions play a key role as an alternative treatment. Several treatments have been developed mainly founded on cognitive-behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, or interpersonal approaches. According to one latest huge network meta-analysis involving 198 random trials conducted on patients suffering from depression, even though the amount of proof differed across the individual treatments, the health impacts appeared to be of the same magnitude (Barth et al., 2016).

The majority of the trials involved in this huge meta-analysis were conducted in specialized mental healthcare surroundings. Two questions arise about the treatment and management of depression, particularly in primary care.

One, can we infer the discoveries from trials conducted in specialized metal healthcare surroundings to primary care? Patients suffering from depression in primary care at times have more somatic or less serious symptoms compare to those patients transferred to specialty mental healthcare.

Two, the restricted figure, as well as the regional allocation of qualified experts, makes it challenging to offer personalized, face-to-face psychological therapy sessions to a broad population. Thus, there has been the development of several interventions whereby there is reduced contact time with the healthcare expert and whereby the treatment gets delivered electronically, by phone, or via printed content. It is important to understand how these less intensive psychological treatment techniques compare to the more intense (conventional) methods.

Description of intervention

CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) refers to a focused method founded on the principle that cognitions affect behaviors and feelings, and that ensuing emotions and behaviors can affect cognitions. CBT features two different aspects: cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy. The latter is founded on the concept that behavior is acquired and can thus be altered. Some examples of behavioral methods include relaxation, activity scheduling, behavior modification, and exposure.

The former is founded on the concept that maladaptive behaviors and distressing emotions are an outcome of poor thinking patterns. Thus, therapeutic interventions like self-instructional training and cognitive restructuring are focused on substituting dysfunctional emotions and thoughts with more useful cognitions, which results in the mitigation of problem emotions, behavior, and thoughts. In this paper, meta-cognitive therapy has been added as part of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Skills training (such as anger management, stress management, and social skills training) is another vital CBT element (Hofmann et al., 2012).

Research method

A two-step procedure was utilized for this review. Firstly, a keyword search was carried out to identify any relevant studies. The used keywords were “evidence-based psychology practice,” evidence-based cognitive biases,” “evidence-based psychology health,” and “evidence-based psychological interventions.” A thorough cross-search was also carried out using different keyword combinations via the EBSCO database of research, which allowed for the simultaneous such of several databases, like Alt Healthwatch, Academic Search Premier, MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and PsycArticles among others. Additionally, further research was carried out via Google Scholar and the ISI Web of Knowledge. This additional search included all studies that referred or alluded to the psychological interventions mentioned in the abstract or title. Supplementary relevant studies and researches were also gotten from the reference lists of various selected articles.

In stage two, every identified reference was screened following two standards: First, the research had to be empirically founded and evaluates the impact of evidence-based practice and programs in outcomes of psychological health. Second, each study’s quality was examined in terms of research method and design, and if the journal was peer-reviewed.

Summary of findings

The findings from the study by Linde et al. (2015) illustrate that whereas several randomized trials have explored psychological treatments among primary care depression patients, it is still hard to determine whether some of the treatments are more effective and helpful than others. In complex meta-analyses, face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy, other one-on-one treatments, guided self-help CBT, remote therapist lead CBT, and minimal/no contact CBT were found to be superior to placebo or ordinary care. One-on-one PST, one-on-one psychodynamic therapy, remote therapist-lead PST, and one-on-one interpersonal psychotherapy did not differ from placebo or ordinary care.

With only one exemption (remote therapist-lead cognitive behavioral therapy was superior to one-on-one interpersonal psychotherapy), the single treatments did not differ. For cognitive-behavioral therapy, several varying delivery methods have been examined, and the results imply that the less intensive interventions have the same impact as conventional one-on-one CBT.

Despite the depression treatment guidelines placing group CBT between high- and low-intensity evidence-based psychological interventions, the legitimacy of this placement remains unknown. Thus, the systematic review of Okumura & Ichikura (2014) sought to systematically appraise proof for the acceptability and efficacy of group cognitive-behavioral therapy among patients suffering from depression in comparison to the four psychological intervention intensity levels. The findings revealed that an average influence in favor of group cognitive-behavioral therapy compared with inactive controls. There was not enough proof to establish whether or not group CBT was indeed more effective than high- or low-intensity interventions because of the restricted amount of RCTs that compare these conditions.

Many people undergo treatment-resistant depression, which is described...
Pieces of evidence of neuroimaging can assist us in understanding psychopathological and psychological phenomena better to improve our understanding of treatment procedures and models.

(3) Integration of psychological data with bio-physical ones

The psychosomatic area that concentrates on direct psycho-biological impacts of emotions and cognitions on medical illnesses pathophysiology is a growing and promising area of research.

(4) Development of fresh connection areas between medicine and clinical health psychology not yet discovered

Next to conventional collaboration areas between psychology and medicine like psycho-oncology, pain management, or psycho-cardiology, collaboration areas including psycho-pneumology, psycho-endocrinology, and psycho-geriatric, as well as latest topics like health behavior, psychological elements of medical diseases, and impact of organic conditions on an individual’s functioning have to be more developed.

(5) Focus on positive psychology

Positive psychotherapy and positive psychology are both new interesting approaches in the field of mental healthcare, and more investigation should be conducted.

(6) Integration of medical, psychological protocols with some of the latest monitoring strategies, virtual reality, technologies, and mHealth

The utilization of latest technologies and mHealth platforms could assist clinicians in various critical scenarios such as offering the continuity of medical help following a conventional duration of inpatient care and also opportunities to motivate and observe patients, particularly in the treatment’s follow-up phase (Castelnuovo, 2017) or even with the rural population that have only limited access to medical services. mHealth should illustrate its usefulness, and further research is required, especially in the cost-effectiveness area, whereby the latest technologies could play an important part in a stepped-care method of care.

(7) Adapting medical, psychological protocols to particular special contexts and populations (active aging and elderly, chronic care management, immigrants, among others)

Medical health psychology should come up with fresh protocols and adjust the old ones to suit the new emergent context and populations, such as elderly citizens, chronic patients, as well as immigrants that need personalized care approaches.

(8) Study of moderators and mediators of change in psychotherapy and medical psychology

The effectiveness of the ESTs (empirically supported treatments) from the EBM (evidence-based medicine) point of view has already been illustrated, and the common aspects approach normally regards every psychological intervention to positive because of the presence of fruitful shared core components. Further investigations should be conducted on the moderators and mediators that would enable and improve change in medical psychotherapy and psychology.

(9) Development of evaluation methods in medical health psychology

New endorsed questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and scales should be developed in order to provide healthcare experts with valid and reliable psychometric tools, which would have a medical impact. Future studies in this area should cover the clinometric model (Castelnuovo, 2017).

(10) Conveying recommendations and guidelines for applications having a medical impact

To realize the real impact and changes in the medical community, studies have to fill in the gap that exists between practice and theory, offering toolkits for clinicians like recommendations and guidelines. A good example of this that needs to be followed is the Italian Consensus Conference on Pain in Neuro-rehabilitation.…