Prevalence of clinical (major) depression in general practice using the DSM-IV version of PRIME-MD

INTRODUCTION: PRIME-MD (Primary Cave Evaluation of Mental Disorder) has bee n developed to detect the most frequent mental disorders in general practic e, METHOD: A prevalence study with the Danish PRIME-MD's module for major depr ession was carried out by general practitioners. In total, 16 practices and 2501 patients were involved in the shiny. RESULTS: The patient questionnaire part of the PRIME-MD was completed by mo ve than 95% of the patients, indicating a high applicability. Around 8% of all patients included suffered from major depression, Of these, the ratio o f females to males was 2:1, Three factors were identified in the questionna ire: depression, psychosomatic distress, and alcohol use. Compared to the n on-depressed patients, the patients with major depression evaluated their h ealth condition as being considerably impaired. CONCLUSION: PRIME-MD is highly applicable in general practice.