Psychotherapists can improve their patients' outcomes during and after therapy by improving patients' self‐management. Patients who do not effectively manage their mental illness generally have worse outcomes. Leventhal's Common‐Sense Model of Self‐Regulation theorizes that patients' perceptions of their illness (illness representations) guide their self‐management, influencing health outcomes. The present study quantified the relations between illness representations, self‐management and outcomes for mental illnesses. We conducted a meta‐analysis and included articles if they reported (1) on adults with mental illnesses and (2) the correlation between mental illness representations and mental illness outcomes. Twenty‐five articles were included which represented 28 independent samples. The pattern of correlations among illness representations (identity, consequences, timeline, control, coherence and emotional representations), self‐management strategies (attendance, engagement and adherence to treatment) and mental illness outcomes (symptom severity and quality of life) was consistent with analyses from previous studies of mental and physical illnesses. The results found threat‐related illness representations mostly had a large relationship with worse mental illness outcomes and self‐management. Protective illness representations had a small‐to‐large relationship with better mental illness outcomes and self‐management. The results suggest patients' perceptions of their mental illness may be a critical indicator of their mental illness outcomes, including symptom severity and quality of life. This theory‐driven meta‐analysis supports calls for the inclusion of illness representations in psychotherapy for mental illness.

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The opioid crisis has highlighted the importance of improving patients' access to behavioral treatments for chronic pain and addiction. What is not known is if patients are interested in receiving these treatments. In this cross-sectional study, over 1,000 participants with chronic pain were surveyed using an anonymous online questionnaire on Amazon Mechanical Turk to investigate participants' use of and interest in pharmacological and behavioral treatments for chronic pain and addiction. Participants also indicated whether their doctor had recommended these treatments. The majority of participants reported using medication for their pain (83.19%) and that their doctor recommended medication (85.05%), whereas fewer participants reported using (67.45%) and being recommended to (62.82%) behavioral treatments. We found 63.67% of participants screened positive for possible opioid misuse; those who screened positive were more interested in receiving behavioral treatments than those who did not screen positive. Participants who received treatment recommendations were more likely to be interested in receiving those treatments as compared to participants who did not. The results suggest that recommendations for behavioral treatments and interest in those treatments are related. Results also suggest that patients endorsing behaviors consistent with opioid misuse are interested in behavioral treatments. Perspective: This study provides information around chronic pain patients' treatment interests, treatment receipt, and recommendation receipt for behavioral pain management and addiction treatment. This study could help facilitate communication between patients and doctors regarding available treatments for chronic pain and pain treatment-related addiction problems.