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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Nusrat KhanORCiD, Professor Matthew PrinaORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2026.Understanding population trajectories of psychological capacities can guide interventions to protect and enhance them across the life course. We conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews examining the trajectories of a wide range of psychological capacity measures. Searches were performed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Google Scholar (11 December 2023 and 26 June 2025). Thirty-six reviews synthesizing 1,307 primary studies were included. Here we show that most reviews focused on depression, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms, with stable low-symptom trajectories being most common. Being a girl/woman and socioeconomic disadvantage were frequent risk factors, while social support emerged as protective. We found a comparative lack of reviews focused on less common mental-health conditions, positive outcomes and older adults. Future reviews should engage with a robust quality assessment of the analytical approach used and the (lack of) geographical and sociodemographic diversity in the primary studies included. Similarly, more evidence on the Global South and on minoritized and marginalized groups within populations is needed. The protocol is pre-registered in PROSPERO (CRD42023490490).
Author(s): Moreno-Agostino D, Khan N, De Rubeis V, Jacob CM, Banati P, Sadana R, Prina M
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Mental Health
Year: 2026
Volume: 4
Pages: 451–468
Print publication date: 01/03/2026
Online publication date: 26/02/2026
Acceptance date: 15/01/2026
Date deposited: 16/03/2026
ISSN (electronic): 2731-6076
Publisher: Springer Nature
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-026-00592-x
DOI: 10.1038/s44220-026-00592-x
Data Access Statement: Data were extracted from the identified systematic reviews as reported in the paper and supplementary material. The study protocol was depos ited in PROSPERO, with reference CRD42023490490 (https://www.crd. york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=490490).
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