What is precision psychiatry, and where does digital fit in?

What is precision psychiatry?

Precision psychiatry is a new approach to mental health care that looks at the whole person, including their genetics, brain function, physical health, lifestyle, sleep, and life experiences, to better understand their mental health and choose treatments that are more likely to work for them. Rather than using a "one-size-fits-all" approach, it aims to match the right treatment to the right person at the right time.

Why the current approach falls short

Today, mental health conditions are often diagnosed and treated based on groups of symptoms, rather than understanding what is causing those symptoms for each individual. As a result, many people find that treatments do not fully address the challenges that affect them most, may cause unwanted side effects, and can reduce their quality of life. Broad diagnostic labels can also miss important differences between people who may have the same diagnosis but very different experiences and needs.

What a different approach looks like

Part of the Mental Health Goals (MHG) programme’s aim is to focus on the symptoms that people themselves say have the biggest impact on their lives, rather than relying only on diagnostic labels such as depression, anxiety, or schizophrenia. To do this, researchers need large amounts of information about people’s mental and physical health, biology, life experiences, and treatments. Just as importantly, people with lived experience of mental health difficulties help decide which questions researchers should investigate and what outcomes matter most.

How digital fits in

Digital tools can help match the right treatment to the right person at the right time. But many digital tools that could improve mental health care never make it into everyday NHS services, even when they show promise in research studies. This is often because the systems needed to support them are complicated, organisations find it difficult to buy and implement new technologies, and there is limited coordination between the people developing, evaluating and using them. As a result, many innovations never reach the people who could benefit from them.

The Mental Health Digital Innovation (MHDI) workstream aims to help overcome these barriers. Its goal is to make it easier to develop, test, introduce and expand digital mental health technologies across the UK, so that effective innovations can become part of routine care rather than remaining as small pilot projects.

MHDI will ensure that more high-quality digital mental health solutions reach those who need them, are easier to access and are better integrated into care pathways.

Why we are embedding lived experience

Central to MHDI's approach is the belief that people with lived experience of mental health conditions must be involved throughout the innovation pathway. By creating stronger partnerships between service users, industry, researchers and healthcare providers, MHDI aims to ensure future digital solutions are both clinically effective and meaningful to the people who use them.

Find out more on the Mental Health Goals Website.