The use of vignettes in studies on mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries in the East Asia and the Pacific region: A scoping review.

To scale up mental health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), understanding mental disorders in the local culture is critical. "Vignettes" are short texts describing a hypothetical character or situation to which respondents give their opinion, and are a potentially useful technique to explore perceptions of mental disorders in the context. We aimed to review how studies using vignettes have been conducted to understand mental disorders in LMICs in the East Asia and the Pacific region. Medline, PsycInfo, EMBASE, CINAHL, and CENTRAL were searched for articles published by April 2024. We included studies that used vignettes to assess mental disorders in LMICs in the region. We excluded studies that used vignettes that did not intend to elicit participants' opinions on the vignettes. A scoping review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. Two researchers performed title/abstract and full-text screening, and one researcher extracted data. The database search yielded 1547 articles, and 55 articles were included in the review. The majority of the studies used an observational, quantitative design. The most common disorders studied using vignettes were depressive disorders, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. The main purposes of using vignettes were to explore the identification of mental disorders, explanatory models, help-seeking, and stigma of mental disorders. Two-thirds of the studies used vignettes and questions to elicit opinions on vignettes that originated from previous studies. Enhanced vignette utilization to understand mental disorders in the context contributes to generate knowledge for the promotion of mental health services in LMICs.