January 2000
Depression to Become the No. 2 Cause of Disability --
New Jama Study Offers Hope for Depression Sufferers
San Francisco, CA - According to a press release distributed today by JAMA, a large majority of patients suffering from depression receive only moderate to poor care in managed care settings. Less than 25 percent of those patients get the right kind of treatment according to Kenneth B. Wells, M.D., from RAND, Health Programs, Santa Monica, CA.
Dr. Wells and his colleagues trained health care teams in 50 managed care primary care clinics to implement a quality improvement program for treating depression using psychotherapy, medication or both. Of the more than 1300 patients in the study, those who were in the quality improvement programs had fewer depressive symptoms, better quality of life, we less likely to be diagnosed as depressed a year later, and were more likely to stay employed. Mark I. Levy, M.D., is available to provide local commentary on these important findings. Levy is Chairman of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Foundation, a forensic psychiatrist and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Please call him at 415-388-8040 to schedule an interview. The San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute and Society is a nonprofit organization and was founded over 50 years ago. Psychoanalysts are experienced mental health professionals, already possessing advanced degrees (MD's, PhD's, MSW's), who have undergone at least eight years of psychoanalytic training.
