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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Documented evidence of depression in medical and nursing case-notes and its implications in acutely ill geriatric inpatients | | Author(s) | Ajit Shah, Tamal De |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 10, no 2, June 1998 |
| Pages | pp 163-172 |
| Keywords | Depression ; Acute illness ; In-patients ; Screening ; United Kingdom. |
| Annotation | Depression is common among acutely ill older medical in-patients, and its early identification by geriatric medicine staff would allow early treatment. The impact of a depression screening procedure on documentation of depressive signs and symptoms in the medical and nursing case notes was examined in this UK study. Thirty-five sets of such case notes of medically ill in-patients, for whom data from the Brief Assessment Schedule and the short Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) were also available, were examined for documentation of signs and symptoms of depression, prescription of antidepressants, and referral to the psychogeriatric service. Depressive signs and symptoms were documented in only a few medical (29%) and nursing (11%) case notes. Only a small number of depressed patients were prescribed antidepressants (20%) or were referred to the psychogeriatric service (13%). The frequency of documentation of depressive signs and symptoms after the screening procedure with the short GDS was associated with subsequent prescription of antidepressants and referral to the psychogeriatric service. The screening procedure itself may increase the general awareness of depressive signs and symptoms and affect its management. (AKM). |
| Accession Number | CPA-981103404 A |
| Classmark | ENR: CHA: LF7: 3V: 8 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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