Depression Treatment in General Medical Setting

临床抑郁症患者可以从新的治疗方法中受益，但他们往往没有得到治疗。低治愈率尤其令人担忧，因为预计到2010年，抑郁症将成为全球第二大致残原因。近年来，重度抑郁症一直是许多初级保健患者干预研究的焦点。然而，尽管在开发和测试抑郁症治疗的质量干预模型方面取得了进展，但对拉丁美洲人干预的有效性知之甚少。这一点很重要，因为拉丁美洲人比白人更不可能接受抑郁症治疗，尽管这两个群体的抑郁症发病率相似。一项重大的公共卫生挑战

Clinically depressed individuals that could benefit from newer treatments for depression often do not receive care. Low treatment rates are of particular concern since depression is projected to be the second leading cause of disability worldwide by 2010. Major depression has been the focus of numerous intervention studies with primary care patients during recent years. However, despite advances in the development and testing of quality intervention models for depression treatment, very little is known about the effectiveness of interventions with Latinos. This is important because Latinos are less likely than whites to receive depression treatment, even though the rates of depression are similar for both groups. A major public health challenge is to make available the benefits of intervention developments in depression treatment for all groups in society. As a first step, this application seeks support to examine the impact of a quality depression intervention with Puerto Ricans. The specific aims are: 1. To examine the effect of a Collaborative Depression Management Program in reducing depressive symptoms, improving quality of life, and decreasing health-related functional impairment among Puerto Rican patients in general medical settings. 2. To determine whether a Collaborative Depression Management Program is effective in improving satisfaction with care and reducing barriers to depression treatment among Puerto Rican patients in general medical settings. This study will employ a randomized experimental design. Depressed patients receiving general medical care will be assigned to one of two conditions: 80 to the Depression Management Program and 80 to treatment as usual. All subjects will complete assessments at baseline, week 8, week 16, and week 24. Our overall programmatic goals are to increase the likelihood that depressed patients receive care and to make available for the Puerto Rican community advances in the treatment of major depression.