Rethinking depression screening: A look at the evidence

A number of national guidelines and policy recommendations have indicated that healthcare professionals should screen patients for depression in primary care and specialty medicine settings.  Screening for depression involves the use of depression symptom questionnaires or small sets of questions about depression to identify people who may have depression, but who have not sought treatment and whose depression has not already been recognized by healthcare providers.

Patients identified as possibly having depression need to be further assessed and, if appropriate, offered treatment. Recommendations for depression screening, however, have been criticized as not evidence-based. This presentation will discuss this controversy in light of existing evidence on depression screening, as well as a number of factors that should be, but have not been generally considered in this debate.

Brett Thombs is an Associate Professor at McGill University, Montreal Canada.  His research focuses on identifying and assessing key problems faced by patients dealing with medical illness and on determining mental health and behavioral intervention paradigms that are likely to improve patients' health and well-being. In addition, he studies how research methods may affect the applicability of research to clinical settings. Dr. Thombs has published almost 150 articles and his 2009 article on depression screening in cardiovascular care was a finalist for the 2009 BMJ Group Research Paper of the Year Award.