Doctors are way behind when it comes to identifying and responding to symptoms of depression, according to a new study.
The study of 1,000 primary care practices in the U.S., based on national survey data from 2006 to 2013, sought to determine how often doctors are using “best practices” in response to a variety of chronic conditions, including asthma, congestive heart failure, diabetes, and depression.
The researchers found that the average primary care practice used less than one of the five recommended management practices for depression. The performance of physicians in this regard did not improve during the seven years examined by the study.
Less than one on average? That means that none of the recommended practices was consistently used by more than half of the practices.
Roughly a third, for instance, kept a list of patients with depression, but less than 10 percent made sure to remind patients about their treatments, including counseling and medication.
“These findings may indicate that U.S. primary care practices are not well equipped to manage depression as a chronic illness, despite the high proportion of depression care they provide,” concluded the team of researchers led by Tara F. Bishop, a professor of health care policy at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
In an interview with Kaiser Health News, Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, who heads the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, compared treatment of depression to that of other common chronic conditions.
“When we treat high blood pressure, the blood pressure may start at 150 over 95, and then it’s monitored over time until it gets to a level that’s being aimed for,” he said. “If somebody has depression, their symptoms need to be monitored until it gets to a level that the depression is lifted.”
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