An umbrella review of psychological capacity and mental health trajectories across the life course

Understanding population trajectories of psychological capacities can guide interventions to protect and enhance them across the life course. We conducted an umbrella review of systematic reviews examining the trajectories of a wide range of psychological capacity measures. Searches were performed in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and Google Scholar (11 December 2023 and 26 June 2025). Thirty-six reviews synthesizing 1,307 primary studies were included. Here we show that most reviews focused on depression, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms, with stable low-symptom trajectories being most common. Being a girl/woman and socioeconomic disadvantage were frequent risk factors, while social support emerged as protective. We found a comparative lack of reviews focused on less common mental-health conditions, positive outcomes and older adults. Future reviews should engage with a robust quality assessment of the analytical approach used and the (lack of) geographical and sociodemographic diversity in the primary studies included. Similarly, more evidence on the Global South and on minoritized and marginalized groups within populations is needed. The protocol is pre-registered in PROSPERO (CRD42023490490).