The Importance of Efficient Depression Management in Primary Care

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Letters1 April 2008The Importance of Efficient Depression Management in Primary CareChristos G. Theleritis, MD, Thomas J. Paparrigopoulos, MD, and George N. Papadimitriou, MDChristos G. Theleritis, MDFrom Athens University Medical School, Eginition Hospital, Athens, Greece.Search for more papers by this author, Thomas J. Paparrigopoulos, MDFrom Athens University Medical School, Eginition Hospital, Athens, Greece.Search for more papers by this author, and George N. Papadimitriou, MDFrom Athens University Medical School, Eginition Hospital, Athens, Greece.Search for more papers by this authorAuthor, Article, and Disclosure Informationhttps://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-148-7-200804010-00018 SectionsAboutFull TextPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail TO THE EDITOR:In their recent article, Hepner and colleagues (1) mention that depression rarely leads to death. This is astonishing, because patients with major depression have an increased overall relative risk for death (1.81 [95% CI, 1.58 to 2.07]) compared with people without depression (2). Even for subclinical depression, this risk is no smaller than the relative risk associated with clinical depression (2). A large part of the increased mortality in depression is due to the risk for suicide (4 to 16 times higher than that in persons without depression) (3).In this context, we consider the results of ...