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Dr Shock MD PhD
Depression is common the estimated lifetime prevalence is 15%. Most patients with depressive disorders are treated by primary care physicians. Approximately 43% of such primary care patients report some degree of suicidal ideation within the previous week. So treating these patients is no sinecure. Moreover, diagnosing depressive disorder in primary care is not easy.
Is it useful to do screening for depression in primary care?
A review was conducted for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force about the benefits and harms of screening adult patients for depression. The articles were reviewed by two investigators against in and exclusion criteria, the articles were rated for quality, abstracted data were included in evidence tables. The draft of the review was reviewed by 6 experts and revised on the basis of their comment. Impressive work.
The authors discuss the used articles very thoroughly. Overall, depression screening without further diagnosing and staff-assisted depression care support is unlikely to improve depression outcomes. Staff-assisted depression care supports refers to clinical staff that assist …