ReviewMedical education2026
Mental health placements for health and social care students: A realist synthesis.
Review in Medical education, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Mental health placements for health and social care students: A realist synthesis.Medical education · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionThe mental health workforce needs to grow to meet increased service demand. Mental health placements are central in building students' mental health capabilities and motivation for mental health careers. Although previous literature reviews have begun to explore mental health placements, they fail to examine how they work (or not), for whom and under what circumstances and why.
methodsWe conducted a realist synthesis of the mental health placement literature employing 29 databases (e.g., Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Scopus and ProQuest) exploring programmes globally and for different health care professions. Employing the five realist review stages (clarifying scope; searching for evidence; study selection and appraisal; data extraction; and synthesis of evidence), we identified repeated context-mechanism-outcome configurations (CMOCs) to develop and refine programme theory.
resultsWith 51 papers representing hospital (n = 20), community (n = 16), and therapeutic recreation-based (n = 15) mental health placements, we identified repeated CMOCs: hospital (n = 6), community (n = 8) and therapeutic recreation-based (n = 5). Although all three settings could generate positive outcomes, our cross-category analysis demonstrated settings affording unique contexts triggering different mechanisms. For example, hospital-based mental health placements afforded contexts triggering student reflection generating improved student capabilities, community-based mental health placements afforded contexts triggering positive student-supervisor relationships generating improved student wellbeing and orientation to mental health, and recreation-based mental health placements afforded contexts triggering positive perceptions of the learning environment generating improved student-consumer relationships. DISCUSSION: We discuss three novel modified programme theories based on our results and make original recommendations to educators to better tailor their placements to the student outcomes they seek (e.g., optimising positive student outcomes in community-based mental health settings through exposure, student-supervisor interactions and student-placement interactions). Realist evaluations are now needed to develop programme theory in Global South countries and non-nursing student groups and to explore educator and consumer outcomes.
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