Depression screening: new recommendation for all adults

It recommends that all women who are pregnant or within a year of giving birth be screened for perinatal depression, as it’s called.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that all adults be screened for depression – but you wouldn’t know it judging by some of the headlines on major news sites, which focused mostly on the (still-important) fact that the group explicitly acknowledged depression during and after pregnancy. The National Institute of Mental Health reported a distinction between the “baby blues” and postpartum depression; the former is commonly experienced and often short-lived, while the latter is much more severe. “Building the capacity of the medical providers who serve pregnant and postpartum provides a solution”, said Byatt, who was instrumental in the design and launch of MCPAP for Moms. That concern is timely in light of the recent death of president and CEO Broward Health, who committed suicide less than two weeks after undergoing triple bypass surgery. She also had a family history of postpartum depression but had assumed “it’s not going to happen to me”, she said.

Professor Hjern said: ‘Depression of a partner can be considered to be a substantial source of stress for an expectant mother, and this may result in the increased risk of very preterm birth seen in our study. “For the meantime, clinicians should use their judgment about the risk of depression in their patients, in deciding how often to screen”. Women (including pregnant women), young and middle-aged adults, and people of color statistically have higher rates of depression than others.

Depression is the leading cause of disease-related disability in women around the world. The group’s previous recommendation, which was issued in 2009, only applied for American adults if hospitals felt they had the staff necessary to carry out such questioning, but the new guidelines recommend that doctors make time for the screening regardless.

But she also noted that screening would not fix everything; the country suffers from a lack of mental health care professionals and the recommendation does not include any extra cash. The need for recommended screening intervals is needed, especially in patients who have experienced major depressive episodes.

The guidelines update those issued in 2009 that did not specifically mention depression in women of childbearing age, but called for adult screening for depression when and where support systems allowed.

The updated recommendation was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on January 26, 2016, and it urges “screening for depression in the general adult population, including pregnant and postpartum women”.

The Task Force highlighted its definition of adequate systems includes having systems and staff necessary to screen patients, as well as appropriate diagnosis, evidence-based treatment or referral if patients do screen positive. As for what these screenings might look like, they could range from a 10-question survey to a sit-down conversation to cognitive behavioral therapy.

Many primary care doctors are probably already screening people for depression.

In an accompanying editorial, Michael E. Thase, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said the answer may be different for each patient. “Each of these visits provides an opportunity to screen and engage women in treatment”. In time, he expressed hope that “better methods to match patients with specific forms of treatment”-one of the aims of the UCLA initiative-will be found”. They track with advice from other groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.