General Practitioners‘ Attitudes Towards Depression, Their Ability to Diagnoze and Treat it

Author: Kasparas Sinkevičius Title: General practitioners’ attitudes towards depression, their ability to diagnose and treat it Aim: To evaluate how various factors are linked to general practitioners’ attitudes and their ability to diagnose and treat depression. Tasks: 1) to evaluate general practitioners’ attitudes towards depression; 2) to assess general practitioners’ knowledge about treating depression; 3) to determine how general practitioners’ sociodemographic and professional practice factors are linked to their attitude towards depression; 4) to identify how general practitioners’ sociodemographic and professional practice factors are linked to their knowledge of treating depression. Methodology: the data was collected from questionnaires which were given to general practitioners during various conferences or they were published on websites for general practitioners. Two questionnaires were used for the research: 1) the revised Depression Attitude Questionnaire (R-DAQ) which was published in 2015 by M. Haddad et al.; 2 a questionnaire involving the main information about the demographics of general practitioners, work practice and knowledge about diagnosing and treating depression. To evaluate the factors between the groups Spearman correlation coefficient (r), Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square (χ2) criteria were used. Results: average scores assessed from R-DAQ factors (m±SN): 1st 2,89±0,66; 2nd 3,40±0,51; 3rd 4,06±0,62. 70,8 percent of general practitioners start treating depression with sertraline prescribing a 50 mg dose; during the last 5 years 46,0 percent of general practitioners attended continual medical education (CME) courses about treating depression. Statistically significant correlation coefficients were obtained among: 1st factor and the duration of one patient’s appointment (r=0,412) as well as the duration of attended CME courses about diagnosing and/or treating depression (r=0,305); 3rd factor and the time spent working as a general practitioner (r=-0,343) as well as the number of appointments with patients with depression (r=0,450). Conclusions: 1) it was assessed that general practitioners do not feel confident enough to treat patients with depression; there are many faulty assumptions about this mental disorder; prevailing positive opinion about the spread of depression, its diagnoses and treatment; 2) it was determined that when starting a depression treatment with sertraline, 70,8% of general practitioners prescribe the initial dose which complies with the recommendations; 3) a correlation was determined between the longer duration of a patient’s appointment, a higher number of visits from patients diagnosed with depression, fewer years of work, longer duration of attended continual medical education courses and the right attitude towards depression; 4) it was not determined that sociodemographic or professional practice factors have any influence towards assigning an initial treatment complying with recommendations