Prioritizing research needs based on a systematic evidence review: A pilot process for engaging stakeholders

P01-255 Detection and prevalence of depressive disorders in primary care settings in Hungary

Depressive disorders are common in primary care and cause substantial disability, but they often remain undiagnosed. Screening is a frequently proposed strategy for increasing detection of depression. To examine the cost-utility of screening for depression compared with no screening. Nonstationary Markov model. The published literature. Hypothetical cohort of 40-year-old primary care patients. Lifetime. Health care payer and societal. Self-administered questionnaire followed by provider assessment. Costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Compared with no screening, the cost to society of annual screening for depression in primary care patients is $192 444/QALY. Screening every 5 years and one-time screening cost $50 988/QALY and $32 053/QALY, respectively, compared with no screening. From the payer perspective, the cost of annual screening is $225 467. Cost-utility ratios are most sensitive to the prevalence of major depression, the costs of screening, rates of treatment initiation, and remission rates with treatment. In Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses, the cost-utility of annual screening is less than $50 000/QALY only 2.2% of the time. In multiway analyses, four model variables must be changed to extreme values for the cost-utility of annual screening to fall below $50 000/QALY, but a change in only one variable increases the cost-utility of one-time screening to more than $50 000/QALY. One-time screening is more robustly cost-effective if screening costs are low and effective treatments are being given. Annual and periodic screening for depression cost more than $50 000/QALY, but one-time screening is cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness of screening is likely to improve if treatment becomes more effective.

Major depression is present in 5-10% of patients in primary care,1 2 including 10-20% of patients with chronic medical conditions.3 Based on the prevalence and burden of depression, the availability...

6.6 Impact of Provider Training on Screening and Detection of Adolescent Depression in Primary Care

Individuals with serious mental illness often are unable to access consumer- and family-oriented community care, resulting in repeated hospitalizations, incarceration, and homelessness. The "medical home" concept was developed in primary care to provide accessible and accountable services for individuals with chronic medical conditions. Building on the work done in primary care, the authors propose a "mental health home." The model of care incorporates medical home characteristics, such as access to and coordination of services, integration of primary and preventive care, adoption of recovery orientation and evidence-based practices, and family and community outreach. Barriers to and strategies for implementation of mental health homes are discussed.

A New Kind of Homelessness for Individuals With Serious Mental Illness? The Need for a "Mental Health Home"

Depression is a common and important problem in the primary care setting. Despite the fact that effective treatments are available, the recognition, management and outcomes of depression in primary care are far from optimal. A variety of approaches to remedy these problems have been evaluated, including: physician education programs; depression screening and feedback; protocol-based treatment by mental health specialists in the primary care setting; and a variety of disease management strategies. Based on this work, we have learned that improving the care and outcomes of depression in primary care requires some or all of the following: a systematic approach to the recognition and assessment of depression; evidence-based decision support; patient education and activation; ongoing monitoring and feedback regarding patient adherence and outcomes; integration of mental health specialists for patients who are not improving as expected; and physician education. However, interventions that include these components have not been sustained or widely disseminated because of the time, energy, commitment and resources that are required. Successful interventions must be low cost, easy to implement, and they must meet the needs of all stakeholders (i.e. payors, providers, patients and behavioral healthcare companies). Innovative programs that take advantage of new technologies have been recently developed to address these challenges, but require further evaluation.

Major depressive disorder affects one in five adults in the United States. While practice guidelines recommend universal screening for depression in primary care settings, clinical outcomes suffer in the absence of optimal models to manage those who screen positive for depression. The current practice of employing additional mental health professionals perpetuates the assumption that primary care providers (PCP) cannot effectively manage depression, which is not feasible, due to the added costs and shortage of mental health professionals. We have extended our previous work, which demonstrated similar treatment outcomes for depression in primary care and psychiatric settings, using measurement-based care (MBC) by developing a model, called Primary Care First (PCP-First), that empowers PCPs to effectively manage depression in their patients. This model incorporates health information technology tools, through an electronic health records (EHR) integrated web-application and facilitates the following five components: (1) Screening (2) diagnosis (3) treatment selection (4) treatment implementation and (5) treatment revision. We have implemented this model as part of a quality improvement project, called VitalSign6, and will measure its success using the Reach, Efficacy, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. In this report, we provide the background and rationale of the PCP-First model and the operationalization of VitalSign6 project.

Primary care clinics have become the "de facto" mental health clinics for teens with mental health problems such as depression; however, there is little guidance for primary care professionals who are faced with treating this population. This study surveyed experts on key management issues regarding adolescent depression in primary care where empirical literature was scant or absent. Participants included experts from family medicine, pediatrics, nursing, psychology, and child psychiatry, identified through nonprobability sampling. The expert survey was developed on the basis of information from focus groups with patients, families, and professionals and from the research literature and included sections on early identification, assessment and diagnosis, initial management, treatment, and ongoing management. Means, standard deviations, and confidence intervals were calculated for each survey item. Seventy-eight of 81 experts agreed to participate (return rate of 96%). Fifty-three percent of the experts (n = 40) were primary care professionals. Experts endorsed routine surveillance for youth at high risk for depression, as well as the use of standardized measures as diagnostic aids. For treatment, "active monitoring" was deemed appropriate in mild depression with recent onset. Medication and psychotherapy were considered acceptable options for treatment of moderate depression without complicating factors such as comorbid illness. Fluoxetine was rated as the most appropriate antidepressant for use in this population. Finally, experts agreed that patients who are started on antidepressants should be followed within 2 weeks after initiation. Survey results support the identification and management of adolescent depression in the primary care setting and, in specific situations, referral and co-management with specialty mental health professionals. Even with the recent controversies around treatment, experts across primary care and specialty mental health alike agreed that active monitoring, pharmacotherapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and psychotherapy can be appropriate under certain clinical circumstances when initiated within primary care settings.

Validation of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for depression screening in adults with epilepsy

Community-based mental health studies have revealed that the point prevalence of depressive disorders in the elderly population of the world varies between 10% and 20%, depending on cultural situations. A retrospective study based on analysis of various study reports was conducted, to determine the median prevalence rates of depressive disorders in the elderly population of India and various other countries in the world. All the studies that constituted the sample were conducted between 1955 and 2005. Included are only community-based, cross-sectional surveys and some prospective studies that had not excluded depression at baseline. These studies were conducted on a homogenous community of the elderly population in the world, who were selected by a simple random sampling technique. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria on published and indexed articles, 74 original research studies that surveyed a total of 487 275 elderly individuals, in the age group of 60 years and above, residing in various parts of the world, were included for the final analysis. The median prevalence rate and its corresponding interquartile range were calculated. The chi-square test and chi-square for linear trend were applied. A P value of <.05 was considered as statistically significant. The median prevalence rate of depressive disorders in the world for the elderly population was determined to be 10.3% (interquartile range [IQR], 4.7%-16.0%). The median prevalence rate of depression among the elderly Indian population was determined to be 21.9% (IQR, 11.6%–31.1%). Although there was a significant decrease in the trend of world prevalence of geriatric depression, it was significantly higher among Indians, in recent years, than the rest of the world.

To improve recognition and treatment of depression in primary care it would be advantageous to have criteria for identification of later depression. Only a few studies were performed on primary care samples to examine risk factors for new depressive episodes. These were mostly cross-sectional and did not include psychiatric symptoms as possible predictors. This is the first one-year-follow-up study investigating prospectively psychiatric symptomatology as risk factors for depressive episodes in a primary care sample. An international primary care sample of initially non-depressed subjects (n = 2,445) was examined for the presence of depression (ICD-10) at follow-up. Initial measures addressed presence of psychiatric symptoms according to the CIDI-Primary Health Care Version and sociodemographic variables. Logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the relationship with the development of new depressive episodes. After one year, 4.4% of primary care patients met ICD-10 criteria for a depressive episode. Logistic regression analysis revealed that symptoms of depression and physical, mainly pain-related symptoms were associated with depression at follow-up. General practitioners therefore should be careful in the consideration of depressive symptoms but also of somatic complaints which might precede depression or mask depressive symptomatology. The present results might be helpful for future development of prediction scales.

To consider the implications for mental health policy of a recent synthesis of the literature on the effectiveness of different service delivery models for depression in primary care. A discussion based on the results of several systematic reviews of primary care models for depression management. Primary care was defined broadly within a prevention, early-intervention, treatment and recovery/support framework, and incorporated both community and general practice settings. There were promising effective models for depression interventions both in the broader community and in general practice settings. There is a need to support evidence-based models for depression care, including innovative new technologies for facilitating consumer self-management of depression. The ability of practitioner training and guideline implementation to improve consumer outcomes for depression is limited. Policies and incentives are required to facilitate the reorganisation of general practice and, in particular, the implementation of care management as well as enhanced care and guided self-help in these settings.

Mood disorders in the emergency department: the challenge of linking patients to appropriate services

PROBLEM/BACKGROUND: Adolescent depression is a growing problem for today's society with only 30% receiving services. The aim of this project was to increase identification and treatment of depressed adolescents, and comfort levels of primary care providers with the implementation of a depression-screening program and use of a clinical depression toolkit within a primary care setting. The setting was a private pediatric practice in central Maine. Over an 8-week period, 266 adolescents were screened. Twelve adolescents (4.5%) received a diagnosis of depression and 11 received treatment within 8 days. Survey results showed a significant increase in providers' feelings of comfort and accountability. This project demonstrates that it is feasible to implement a depression screening and treatment program in primary care. It demonstrates that primary care providers can increase their comfort and feelings accountability in treating depression in primary care, thus increasing access for this monumental and potential catastrophic problem.