Assessing depression
Instructions:
Respond to your colleague by comparing your assessment tool (Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A)) to theirs.
**minimum of three (3) scholarly references are required for each reply cited within the body of the reply & at the end**
Reply # 1
Sabine Jules
Week 2 Discussion Main Post
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There needs to be a tool that can accurately assess depression. Depression is a mood disorder that affects many people worldwide. Depression is very common but can be resistive to treatment. Depression is considered a complex problem with potentially serious economic consequences for affected individuals as well as the public healthcare systems. There is much debate among laypersons, patients, academics, and clinicians about the causes of depression( Singh & Mastana, (2015).
The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is a nine item questionnaire designed to screen for depression in primary care and other medical settings ( Levis, Benedetti, &Thombs, 2019) This is primarily used in all health care settings. It is the preferred rating scale for depression. It can be self-administered or administered by clinicians. The PHQ-9 data can help the provider understand suicidal ideation in it’s targeted population.
This test looks at the patient’s symptoms in the past 2 weeks. Ratings of the questions include 0= not at all, 1=several days, 2=more than half of the days, 3=nearly every day. The scores are added based on the chosen response to the questions.
This test is appropriate for use initially and at continued intervals throughout evaluation and treatment. It is best used with a combination of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology as a management tool ( Costantini et al. 2021). It can be used as a starting point for diagnosing depressing, however, a practitioner should know when to use this tool.
References
Singh, P., & Mastana, S. (2015). Depression : a silent culprit in health and disease. Bentham Science Publishers, Limited.
Levis, B., Benedetti, A., Thombs, B. D., & DEPRESsion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Collaboration (2019). Accuracy of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for screening to detect major depression: individual participant data meta-analysis. BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 365, l1476. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l1476
Costantini, L., Pasquarella, C., Odone, A., Colucci, M. E., Costanza, A., Serafini, G., Aguglia, A., Belvederi Murri, M., Brakoulias, V., Amore, M., Ghaemi, S. N., & Amerio, A. (2021). Screening for depression in primary care with Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9): A systematic review. Journal of Affective Disorders, 279, 473–483. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.09.131
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