IREF is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to multicenter research in these areas and is closely affiliated with the McSPI investigators and their institutions. Read the abstract for this article or go back to the top. Reasons for the gap have been attributed to patient, provider and health system factors. Finally, many managed health care systems create barriers to prescribing the best antidepressant medication, discourage the proper monitoring of patients, and do not allow for the proper recognition of the chronic and recurrent nature of depression. Too many patients with depression are treated for very brief periods of time and then lost to the health care system.
Depression is one of the most frequent of all medical illnesses.
Despite these facts, the vast majority of patients with chronic depression are misdiagnosed, receive inappropriate or inadequate treatment, or are given no treatment at all, according to information cited in the study. Develop performance standards for behavioral health care. Remove barriers to provider recognition, diagnosis, and screening through educational programs. Collaboration among primary care physicians, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals. Conduct research on the development and testing of new treatments.