Predictors and barriers to minimally adequate treatment among treated individuals with mental disorders: results from the World Mental Health Surveys

While approximately two-thirds of treated cases meet MAT criteria, significant gaps remain involving both premature discontinuation and cases where respondents reported completing a 'full recommended course of treatment' that did not involve enough visits or medication duration to meet the MAT standards. Expanding access to mental health specialty providers and increasing patient education about disorder severity would be useful in increasing the proportion of treated cases that receive MAT. Future research should focus on validating MAT definitions against clinical outcomes, standardizing assessment frameworks, and exploring provider- and system-level determinants of treatment adequacy.