BACKGROUND Depression continues to be under-diagnosed in primary care settings. One factor that influences physicians' likelihood of diagnosing depression is patients' presentation style. Patients who initially present with somatic symptoms are diagnosed at a lower rate and with greater delay than patients who present with psychosocial complaints. OBJECTIVES To identify the barriers preventin...

BACKGROUND Depression assessment in population studies is usually based on depressive symptoms scales. However, the use of scales could lead to the choice of an arbitrary cut-off point depending on the sample characteristics and on the patient diagnosis. Thus, the use of a medical diagnosis of depression could be a more appropriate approach. OBJECTIVE To validate a self-reported physician dia...

objective: quality of life (qol) assessment has been employed increasingly to evaluate outcome among patients with chronic medical conditions. such assessment could be adversely affected by psychiatric disorders, co existing with such a medical condition. method: a cross sectional study of 251 out-patients with diabetes mellitus was done at a nigerian university teaching hospital using the comp...

OBJECTIVE Depression is a prevalent disorder difficult to diagnose and treat. In particular, depressed patients exhibit largely unpredictable responses to treatment. Toward the goal of personalizing treatment for depression, we develop and evaluate computational models that use electronic health record (EHR) data for predicting the diagnosis and severity of depression, and response to treatment...

OBJECTIVE To validate the ICD-10 diagnosis of a single depressive episode as used in daily clinical psychiatric practice and as recorded in the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register. METHODS Patients discharged with a diagnosis of a single depressive episode were consecutively sampled from the register and diagnosed according to an interview using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence of, and risk factors for, depression and anxiety in women with early breast cancer in the five years after diagnosis. DESIGN Observational cohort study. SETTING NHS breast clinic, London. PARTICIPANTS 222 women with early breast cancer: 170 (77%) provided complete interview data up to either five years after diagnosis or recurrence. MAIN OUTCOME MEASU...

Depression is a disabling illness which decreases quality of life and productivity. The point prevalence of major depression ranges from 5% to 9% among adults in primary care settings. Both pharmacological and psychological treatment are effective in treating depression.

Many large provider networks are investing heavily in preventing disease within the communities that they serve. We explore the potential benefits and challenges associated with tackling depression at the community level using a unique dataset designed for one such provider network. The economic costs of having depression (increased medical care use, lower quality of life, and decreased workpla...