Palpitations, hot flashes, chest pains, or problems with appetite, can be overlooked as signs of depression, according to a study of 200 adults. The study focused on a secondary analysis of patients beginning a new treatment episode for depression, and evaluated the effects of treatment as a result of physical versus psychological symptoms presented.
"While we are aware that current depression treatment is most often ineffective," offers author Dr. Robert D. Keeley, "we attempted to define the patient group that does not receive appropriate treatment, or does not respond to adequate treatment, by returning to the basic medical tenet of listening to the patient." The findings pointed out that physicians sometimes misattribute ill-defined physical symptoms to causes other than depression.
The most effective treatments, regardless of symptoms, were successful because they matched patient preference. Patients who had physical symptoms of depression were less likely to agree with a medical diagnosis of depression and thus tended to be nonaccepting of antidepressants, while 72% of patients with psychological symptoms who were presented with antidepressants as a treatment showed improved outcomes.
The study concludes that physicians need to search for new or modified interventions for depression when treating a patient with physical symptoms to improve the outcome.
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Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
16-Jul-2004