Predictive Power of Positive Mental Health: A Scoping Review

Abstract Positive mental health (PMH) has been shown to be of great importance to adaptive functioning. The aim of this article is to review the literature on PMH as assessed with the PMH-Scale. A literature search identified 85 articles that were published between 2007 and 2023 on PMH as assessed with the PMH-Scale. The identified articles focus on seven thematic areas: (1) psychometric studies; (2) sociodemographic factors; (3) mental disorders; (4) suicidality; (5) coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); (6) influencing factors; (7) treatment. The findings support the predictive power of PMH regarding the cross-cultural course of psychopathology/mental disorders as well as health-related behavior and healthy development. Results on PMH are comparable across cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The significance of these findings is limited by the fact that only few studies involving experimental manipulation of PMH have been carried out. The present findings emphasize the importance of PMH at the individual and collective level, as well as the urgent need to make PMH part of the routine assessment of mental health in addition to variables of psychopathology.