Abstract
Objective: To describe a group of depressed patients that participated in a clinical intervention to improve depression treatment in rural areas. Materials and Methods: It is a clinical intervention for depressed patients from 15 rural hospitals. The principal outcome is depressive symptomatology measured with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the secondary outcome is quality of life. The intervention consists of a collaborative program between primary care teams and specialized teams, with support from an electronic platform and a call center. Results: 254 subjects—13.8% men and 86.2% women—were recruited, with an age range between 18 and 65 years. The majority had a stable partner and attended high school. Homemakers made up 47.4% of the sample, and 38.7% were employed. The average BDI score was 29.8 (s. d. = 9.2). There was a history of previous depressive episodes in 42.9% of the cases, 37.4% presented severe suicide risk, and 59.1% had a comorbid anxiety disorder. Conclusion: It is a clinical sample of patients with severe depressive symptoms who are treated by primary care physicians in rural zones. The sample had comorbid anxiety and poor quality of life associated with their mental illness.
Highlights
Depression is a highly disabling condition and a public health problem, due to its high prevalence, long duration, and recurrence
Population-level studies carried out in Chile have calculated a prevalence of approximately 5% in the general population and 30% in the population served by the public primary care system (Florenzano, Acuña, Fullerton, & Castro, 1998; Kohn et al, 2005; Rojas, Araya, & Fritsch, 2000; Sartorius et al, 1993)
The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI), SF-36, and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) have been previously used in Chile by some of the investigators who carried out the current study (Rojas et al, 2007; Rojas, Araya, & Lewis, 2005)
Summary
To describe a group of depressed patients that participated in a clinical intervention to improve depression treatment in rural areas. Materials and Methods: It is a clinical intervention for depressed patients from 15 rural hospitals. The principal outcome is depressive symptomatology measured with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the secondary outcome is quality of life. The intervention consists of a collaborative program between primary care teams and specialized teams, with support from an electronic platform and a call center. There was a history of previous depressive episodes in 42.9% of the cases, 37.4% presented severe suicide risk, and 59.1% had a comorbid anxiety disorder. Conclusion: It is a clinical sample of patients with severe depressive symptoms who are treated by primary care physicians in rural zones. The sample had comorbid anxiety and poor quality of life associated with their mental illness
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