The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has published an update (1) of their recommendations for screening for depression in adults seen in a primary care office.  You might assume that screening for depression is always a good thing until you realize that it will help only those whose depression would not otherwise be detected by their medical clinician.  These cases of “screen-detected depression” tend to be milder than “clinician-detected depression”, they may not need treatment and they might not respond as well to medication.  In addition, about half of patients given medication for depression in primary care stop taking it in less than three months which limits the effectiveness and  increases the relapse rate of their illness.  This reduces the benefit of screening.

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Continuing the discussion from the last post, a new study has shown that anti-depressant medication (ADM) has no more benefit than a sugar pill (placebo) when depression is less than very severe (1).  What should you do if you were in that category of depression when ADM was prescribed for you and you are still taking them?

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Continuing the discussion from the last post, a new study has shown that anti-depressant medication (ADM) has no more benefit than a sugar pill (placebo) when depression is less than very severe (1).  This evidence, though not necessarily a reason to halt prescription of ADM for patients in that category, should certainly make clinicians reconsider the risks and benefits and discuss the results of this research with their patients.

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Continuing the discussion from the last post, the University of Pennsylvania study (1) concluded that anti-depressant medication (ADM) was no better than placebo (sugar pill) for people with mild, moderate or even severe depression as measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.  Only in those with very severe depression by that scale was the improvement with ADM significantly greater than the improvement with placebo.

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The results from the JAMA paper (1, described in the last post) are reported using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale.  The scale is derived from a series of questions and scores are interpreted as follows: (more…)

In the U.S. alone, 27 million people take anti-depressant medication.  This is approximately 10% of the population of teens and adults.  With numbers like that, it is not surprising that a recent study (1) received a great deal of attention from national and local news media.

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