ReviewThe British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science2024
Effect of nature on the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents: meta-review.
Review in The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Clinicians' Perceptions of Nature-Based Interventions in Mental Health Care: A Qualitative Descriptive Study from Pakistan.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Employee-nature interactions: A scoping review on employees' green exercise behaviors.Work (Reading, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Nature is nurture: a scoping review of nature exposure as an equigenic intervention on children's psychological health.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Linking park environmental characteristics to child health outcomes: towards an evidence-based child-friendly design framework.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- From risk to resilience: a narrative overview of modifiable factors influencing depression in children with autism spectrum disorder (part I).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- From risk to resilience: a narrative overview of modifiable factors influencing anxiety in children with autism spectrum disorder (part II).Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- The Beneficial Interaction Between Human Well-Being and Natural Healthy Ecosystems: An Integrative Narrative Approach.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Review
- From adventures to diagnosis: adolescent behavior in classic fiction through the eyes of newly licensed Czech psychiatrists - a vignette study.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUrbanisation is taking place worldwide and rates of mental illness are rising. There has been increasing interest in 'nature' and how it may benefit mental health and well-being.
aimsTo understand how the literature defines nature; what the characteristics of the nature intervention are; what mental health and well-being outcomes are being measured; and what the evidence shows, in regard to how nature affects the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.
methodA meta-review was conducted, searching three databases for relevant primary and secondary studies, using key search terms including 'nature' and 'mental health' and 'mental well-being'. Inclusion criteria included published English-language studies on the child and adolescent population. Authors identified the highest quality evidence from studies meeting the inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and analysed using descriptive content analysis.
resultsSixteen systematic reviews, two scoping reviews and five good quality cohort studies were included. 'Nature' was conceptualised along a continuum (the 'nature research framework') into three categories: a human-designed environment with natural elements; a human-designed natural environment; and a natural environment. The nature 'intervention' falls into three areas (the 'nature intervention framework'): access, exposure and engagement with nature, with quantity and quality of nature relevant to all areas. Mental health and well-being outcomes fit along a continuum, with 'disorder' at one end and 'well-being' at the other. Nature appears to have a beneficial effect, but we cannot be certain of this.
conclusionsNature appears to have a beneficial effect on mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. Evidence is lacking on clinical populations, ethnically diverse populations and populations in low- and middle-income countries. Our results should be interpreted considering the limitations of the included studies and confidence in findings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.