RECOGNITION AND MANAGEMENT OF MAJOR DEPRESSION IN PSYCHIATRIC OUTPATIENT CARE - A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

We studied the ability of psychiatric practitioners to recognize and t reat major depression in standard clinical practice in Finland. A ques tionnaire with 18 items (including, e.g., physicians' characteristics, two case reports and diagnostic and treatment proposals for both of t hem) was sent to 255 physicians in communal psychiatric outpatient car e. 216 physicians responded (85%). Results suggest that diagnostic acc uracy was good. Treatment proposals showed high sensitivity and lower specificity when the use of antidepressive medication was examined, Th is may reflect increased education concerning the illness and the effe ct of the new antidepressants, which are probably considered easier to initiate, or may be partly due to systematic error. Physicians' chara cteristics determined neither diagnostic nontreatment decisions.