Research and policy on child and adolescent mental health in Chile. Systematic review, 2000-2015

Authors

  • Vanessa Orrego Universidad Diego Portales

Abstract

The Health Objectives 2011-2020 recognize the usefulness of health research in the decision-making process through four strategies: formulating priorities, encouraging research, developing the research capabilities of the system and promoting knowledge transfer. To this end, WHO proposes, among others, to make a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific evidence that allows to see the knowledge gaps. Thus, the objective of this paper was to analyze the gap between academic production on child and adolescent mental health in Chile and the governmental agenda in health and mental health, between 2000-2015. The methodology followed the recommendations of the Prisma Declaration and added 160 indexed articles, which examine the Chilean population under the age of 29; descriptive statistics and content analysis were applied. The results show important difficulties in science that make it difficult to prioritize the child and adolescent mental health on the governmental agenda, including the predominance of the risk factors approach and the absence of concrete solutions related to the policy of the country. The conclusions aim to modify the use of scientific knowledge, abandoning the rational and linear conceptions that do not consider the complexity of the political process of construction of the public problems.

Keywords:

Health research, Public politics, Child and adolescent mental health