Task force: Docs should screen for depression
By Carina Storrs, CNN
Have you felt down a lot in the last couple of weeks? How often have you felt tired or felt as if you couldn’t concentrate?
These are some of the questions your doctor might ask to determine if you are at risk of depression. And if new recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are followed, primary care physicians will do this type of depression screening for all adult patients at least once.
The recommendations by the task force, an independent expert panel, update its 2009 advice in two important ways: First, everyone 18 and older should be screened, the panel said — and not just at clinics where systems are in place to connect at-risk individuals to mental health care. Second, primary care doctors should screen women who are pregnant or have recently given birth, two groups not included in earlier recommendations.
