Integrated Physical-Mental Healthcare Services in Specialist Settings to Improve Outcomes for Older People Living With Mental Health Diagnoses: A Systematic Review

Background: Many older people are now living with co-occurring physical and mental health disorders, but these often managed separately. The aim of this systematic review was to explore integrated physical-mental health care services available internationally for older people living with mental health diagnoses, and whether these result in improved health outcomes.

Methods: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO and Scopus were searched with a predefined search strategy (PROSPERO: CRD42022383824), generating 6210 articles. Studies were included where an integrated physical-mental health care service model was utilised in a population of older people (aged >60 years) with a mental health diagnosis (including dementia or cognitive impairment) and at least one concomitant physical health condition requiring physical health care input. All studies were assessed for risk of bias (ROB 2.0, ROBINS-I) and results were synthesised narratively.

Results: Nine studies were included across inpatient (n = 6, 1262 patients) and community (n = 3, 466 patients) settings. Studies were rated as low-moderate risk of bias. These covered joint physical-mental health wards, liaison services, embedded physicians in mental health wards, and joint multidisciplinary teams. Services with greater integration (e.g., joint wards) had more benefits for patients and carers. There were few benefits to traditional outcomes (e.g., hospital admissions, mortality), but greater care quality, carer satisfaction, and improved mood and engagement were demonstrated.

Conclusions: Multidisciplinary integrated care resulted in improvement of a range of health outcomes for older people with combined physical and mental health needs. Larger and more robust studies are needed to explore the development of these service models further, with cost-effectiveness analyses.