Mental Health Interventions for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness in the Criminal Legal System: A Systematic Review

Course overview

Course Description: This course is based on material published in BMC Psychiatry and is available as an open-access article. Globally, individuals with mental illness get in contact with the law at a greater rate than the general population. The goal of this review was to identify and describe: (1) effectiveness of mental health interventions for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) who have criminal legal involvement; (2) additional outcomes targeted by these interventions; (3) settings/contexts where interventions were delivered; and (4) barriers and facilitating factors for implementing these interventions. A systematic review was conducted to summarize the mental health treatment literature for individuals with serious mental illness with criminal legal involvement (i.e., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder). Searches were conducted using PsychINFO, Embase, ProQuest, PubMed, and Web of Science. Articles were eligible if they were intervention studies among criminal legal involved populations with a mental health primary outcome and provided description of the intervention. A total of 13 eligible studies were identified. Tested interventions were categorized as cognitive/behavioral, community-based, interpersonal (IPT), psychoeducational, or court-based. Studies that used IPT-based interventions reported clinically significant improvements in mental health symptoms and were also feasible and acceptable. Other interventions demonstrated positive trends favoring the mental health outcomes but did not show statistically and clinically significant changes. All studies reported treatment outcomes, with only 8 studies reporting both treatment and implementation outcomes. Our findings highlight a need for more mental health research in this population. Studies with randomized design, larger sample size and studies that utilize non-clinicians are needed. This course on interventions for patients with mental illness in the criminal legal system is designed for clinical social workers, psychologists, professional counselors, nurses, and substance abuse counselors who do clinical work. This course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to develop their expertise with interventions for patients with mental illness in the criminal legal system. The course material includes a literature review of interventions. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require continuing clinical education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article that includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A significant benefit of reading peer reviewed research-based articles for continuing education is that they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Hailemariam, Bustos, Montgomery, Brown, Tefera, Adaji, Taylor, Eshetu, Barajas, Najjar, Dennis, Hudson, Felton, Johnson Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding interventions for patients with mental illness in the criminal legal system. Specifically, a professional will: Recognize associations between serious mental illness and the criminal legal system. Describe effective interventions for treating serious mental illness within the criminal legal system. Identify uses of the Sequential Intercept Model. Citation: Hailemariam, M., Bustos, T. E., Montgomery, B. W., Brown, G., Tefera, G., Adaji, R., Taylor, B., Eshetu, H., Barajas, C., Barajas, R., Najjar, V., Dennis, D., Hudson, J., Felton, J. W., & Johnson, J. E. (2024). Mental health interventions for individuals with serious mental illness in the criminal legal system: a systematic review. BMC psychiatry, 24(1), 199. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-024-05612-7