Know For Certain If You're Depression Is Cured

Curing Depression? 7-item questionnaire to determine if you are recovered.

Determining when treatment of a depressed patient can safely be discontinued is important but difficult for clinicians; until now, no tests have been available that are simple to administer in a doctor's office.

Roger McIntyre and colleagues developed a brief 7-item questionnaire to determine if a patient with depression has recovered, and have now evaluated it for use in primary care.

In a randomized controlled trial involving 454 patients with major depressive disorder across 47 medical practices in 4 provinces, outcomes of antidepressant therapy were determined with the brief HAMD-7 questionnaire or the standard longer questionnaire (the HAMD-17) that is used in research and specialty settings.

Results from the 2 study instruments showed good agreement, which suggests that the shorter version is accurate and could be used in clinical practice by physicians.

p. 1327 Measuring the severity of depression and remission in primary care: validation of the HAMD-7 scale -- R.S. McIntyre et al

Find PDF of study here - http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/data/173/11/1327/DC2/1


Dr. Roger McIntyre
Canadian Medical Association Journal