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The Article in Brief
Reinvention of Depression Instruments by Primary Care Clinicians
Seong-Yi Baik , and colleagues
Background Many instruments have been developed to help diagnose depression and evaluate its treatment. This study looks at how and why primary care clinicians use depression screening instruments in their practices.
What This Study Found Primary care clinicians report using depression-screening instruments when they need to persuade a patient to accept a diagnosis of depression, when they lack time, or when they do not fully understand the patient�s social and relational life. They rarely use depression instruments for screening purposes or for monitoring the treatment of depression.
Implications
- Clinicians have reinvented depression screening instruments to deal with a real-world problem: convincing patients, believed to be depressed, that they are depressed and developing a shared agenda for treatment. This negotiation process is overlooked by current guidelines for depression, yet primary care clinicians see it as one of the greatest burdens they face.
- Additional research is needed to help foster efficient depression care processes for real-world primary care practice.