Educational interventions to reduce mental health stigma toward patients among healthcare professionals and trainees: a systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE: Mental health-related stigma among healthcare professionals and trainees remains a significant barrier to high-quality, person-centred care. Educational interventions are frequently proposed to reduce stigma; however, their effectiveness across professional groups and outcome domains remains uncertain. This review evaluated the effectiveness of educational interventions in reducing mental health stigma among healthcare professionals and trainees. METHODS: A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted. Searches of CENTRAL, PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL were completed up to 1 July 2025. Randomised controlled trials evaluating educational interventions aimed at reducing stigma among healthcare professionals or trainees were included. Primary outcomes were changes in attitudes, knowledge, affective responses, and behaviourally related indicators. Certainty of evidence was appraised using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. RESULTS: Nineteen reports (including 21 studies) were included. Educational interventions significantly reduced explicit negative attitudes towards people with mental illness immediately post-intervention among both healthcare professionals and trainees (SMD = - 0.38; 95% CI [-0.53, - 0.23]). Intended behavioural outcomes improved among healthcare professionals (SMD = 0.57, 5% CI [0.03 to 1.12]), but not among students, and these effects were not maintained at follow-up. No significant improvements were observed in mental health knowledge or social distance, while evidence for affective outcomes remained inconclusive because of the small number of heterogeneous studies. The certainty of evidence ranged from very low to moderate. CONCLUSION: Educational interventions may produce modest short-term reductions in explicit negative attitudes and improve intended behaviours among practising healthcare professionals. However, evidence for improvements in knowledge, affective responses, social distance, and sustained effects remains limited. Given the overall very low-to-moderate certainty of evidence, these findings should be interpreted cautiously. Future research should prioritise rigorously designed, theory-informed trials with standardised outcome measures and longer follow-up to determine how educational interventions can achieve durable reductions in mental health-related stigma.