Strengths assessment in mental health services: A systematic review

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to review the development of strengths assessment in mental health services and evaluate the features of those newly developed strengths assessments.

Method A systematic literature review approach was adopted to identify relevant articles from September 2010 to August 2021.

Results The results reveals that 1) the Value in Action Inventory of Strengths is the most widely studied strengths assessment but contains shortcomings in the application of mental health services; 2) 12 strengths assessments have been newly developed, which demonstrated quantitative measure, brief questionnaire, and contextual consideration are the tendency of measure development; 3) domains of strengths assessments were categorized into individual strengths, environmental strengths, and interpersonal strengths, in which individual strengths was the most commonly focus; 4) strengths conceptualization and psychometric properties are two remained limitations of existing strengths assessments.

Discussion Developing a brief, quantitative, holistic, contextualized, recovery-oriented, psychometrically sound, and strengths-based assessment for people with mental illnesses is promising.