Put Primary Care at Forefront of Treatment for Depression

The primary care setting is the most appropriate venue for the screening and early treatment of depression, according to the lead author of an article published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Depression is one of the most common behavioral health disorders in the country, with the estimated lifetime risk of a major depressive episode set at about 30%. Suicide, which is associated with depression more than 50% of the time, has become more prevalent in recent years and is now the 10th leading cause of death for Americans.

"Primary care settings offer the broadest reach in terms of patients seeking care, and therefore are the optimal place to conduct screening for depression and suicide," Lawrence Park, MD, medical director of the Clinical Research Unit at the National Institute of Mental Health's Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch in Bethesda, Maryland, told HealthLeaders last week.