National outreach effort: A simple way you can screen for depression

A new initiative will enable doctors to use a free screening test to get depressed patients into treatment.

Editorial. Oct. 1, 2001.

A patient who visits a doctor's office for one health problem may have another not as obvious -- depression.

An initiative this October and November is aimed at helping primary care physicians see for themselves the value of screening for depression. The centerpiece is a 10-question, true-false screening test for patients -- provided free to doctors -- that has a proven track record.

This primary care outreach is one activity of National Depression Screening Day, Oct. 11. The date itself is the focal point for hospital and clinic-based presentations and screenings by mental health professionals. The two-month window for screening by primary care physicians is designed to make it easy to fit into office schedules. The AMA and other groups are encouraging physician participation.

Several thousand primary care physicians already have taken part in the program, now in its fourth year. They overwhelmingly reported that they found it useful. Those physicians willing to give it a try might find that a significant number of patients score positive for depression -- in past years participating physicians reported it was more than 20% -- with many of them not already in treatment. Overall, between 5% and 10% of primary care patients are believed to be clinically depressed. [...]