depressed woman (Photo : Reuters)
The United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel of experts, has created a questionnaire to determine if people are at a high risk of clinical depression. They can fill out the form within a few minutes at a doctor's clinic or download it from the Internet and then submit it to a physician, who can then spot signs of severe sadness and assess their mental health.
The U.S. task force made the recommendation on July 27, Monday. It encourages family doctors to regularly screen their patients for clinical depression.
USPSTF hopes its questionnaire will serve as an effective tool for identifying red flags of the mental condition. It was made to be completed quickly and easily.
If patients show warning signs of having a serious case of the blues, they would be given a referral to a specialist, so they could receive a complete diagnosis and care that includes either medication or therapy. In some cases they would need both.
There are two main questions for diagnosing depression. One is whether a person has felt "down, depressed, or hopeless." The other query is whether someone has had little "interest or pleasure" doing activities, according to Apex Tribune.
Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo from the University of California (San Francisco) is the USPSTF vice chair. She shared that many tools exist for depression screening.
Her group reported that between 2009 and 2012, about 7 percent of U.S. adults battled severe sadness, according to Ledger Gazette. However, only about 50 percent of them have been diagnosed by experts in the field of psychology.
Melancholy can lead to various other health issues. It can also result in different social and financial problems, such as absences at work and avoiding friends and relatives.
Michael Yapko is a California clinical psychologist. He shared that only one-fourth of depression sufferers are comfortable getting help from a mental health expert. However, over 90 percent of those people would consult a doctor and not hide any symptoms of their despondency.
Clinical depression can have a major impact on a human's quality of life. In fact, among Americans at least 15 years old it is the top cause of disability.
