A Conceptual Model for Behavioral Health and Primary Care Integration: Emerging Challenges and Strategies for Improving International Mental Health Services

In many countries, there is a growing concern about the lack of coordination and integration of primary care with services for mental and substance-use conditions: Care is all too often fragmented across the spectrum of general medical and specialty behavioral health systems. This fragmentation tends to perpetuate systems of care that are not sensitive to the needs of individuals, provide poor quality of care, and produce inconsistent health outcomes. General health care functions across a continuum of care that includes prevention, primary care, and chronic care management. The articulation of the common elements in general and behavioral health care along that continuum has the potential to foster a framework for enhanced coordination of care for individuals in the context of improved systems of care that better supports recovery and favorable health outcomes.