Monitoring, feedback, and care management improve treatment of depression

Although the benefits of organised treatment programmes for treating depression in primary care have been shown, such programmes typically require additional patient visits and major increases in treatment costs. Simon et al (p 550) conducted a randomised trial of usual care, feedback to the doctor, and feedback plus care management (which included monitoring by telephone 8 and 16 weeks after initiation of antidepressant treatment). The interventions showed major improvements in the treatment of depression. Their findings are consistent with other studies showing benefits of systematic telephone follow up in the management of chronic illness. A programme limited to feedback of computerised data on treatment adherence had no positive effects. These findings support the value of systematic follow up care by telephone as a supplement to traditional management of depression in primary care.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Randomised trial of monitoring, feedback, and management of care by telephone to improve treatment of depression in primary care

Gregory E Simon, Michael VonKorff, Carolyn Rutter, and Edward Wagner
BMJ 2000 320: 550-554. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]