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Depression: A Long-Term Illness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2018

Martin B. Keller
Martin B. Keller*
Affiliation:
Butler Hospital, Brown Affiliated Hospitals, 345 Blackstone Boulevard, Providence, RI 02906, USA
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Abstract

The realisation that major depression is often both chronic and recurrent has slowly begun to change the way that depression is diagnosed and treated. In particular, the need for continuation and maintenance treatment is an issue that now deserves increased attention, especially with the availability of new classes of antidepressant treatments, which have excellent efficacy and more favourable side-effect profiles. Although the serious consequences of depressive disorders clearly indicate the need for effective and prompt intervention on the part of clinicians, the results of several studies indicate that patients with depression consistently receive no or low levels of antidepressant therapy. It is hoped that, through continued education of health care providers and patients about the consequences of depression, the issue of undertreatment of this serious illness will be resolved.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 165 , Issue S26: Depression: Challenge for the '90s , December 1994 , pp. 9 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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