Management of depression and suicide.
10.5124/jkma.2011.54.3.275
- Author:
Hyeon Woo YIM
1
;
Hyunsuk JEONG
;
Young Eun JUNG
;
Hee Ryung WANG
;
Soo Young KIM
Author Information
1. Department of Preventive Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea School of Medicine, Korea. y1693@catholic.ac.kr
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Depression;
Suicide;
Screening;
Staff-assisted care
- MeSH:
Appointments and Schedules;
Depression;
Humans;
Korea;
Mass Screening;
Mental Health;
Primary Health Care;
Recurrence;
Running;
Suicidal Ideation;
Suicide
- From:Journal of the Korean Medical Association
2011;54(3):275-283
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
Depression is a highly prevalent mental health disease that, fortunately, can easily be treated. However, depression is often inadequately managed because only some depressive patients seek professional help, and even when they do, they often discontinue their treatments. Research has shown that there is a high association between suicide and depression. Proper depression management plans help depressive patients adhere to treatment medication and support them in continuing treatment. These efforts for treating depression may reduce suicidal ideation and behavior. Simply giving screening results to clinicians was not enough to have treatment outcomes. Besides informing clinicians of patients' screening results, staff-assisted care, including educating patients, following-up on assessments and treatment schedules, helping patients adhere to prescribed antidepressant medications, and referring to mental health care professionals would be critical to achieving successful treatment outcomes. A higher level of staff-assisted care has been reported to have higher treatment outcomes. Future studies in Korea are needed to establish a depression screening system, including post-screening management programs in primary care or community care settings, and to assess the effectiveness of this system. Attaining a higher depression diagnosis rate through screening and running post-screening management programs with sufficient staffing for treatment adherence will reduce depression relapse and suicidal attempts.
