Referring Adult Depressed Psychiatric Patients From Primary Care To Mental Health Specialist To Improve Medication Compliance

Referring adult depressed psychiatric patients from primary care to mental health specialist to improve medication compliance
Student Name: Benjamin A. Omaiye
Professor: M. Hill
Course Title:Signature assignment Statistics 701
Date: 10/13/17
Abstract
Depression is a chronic illness which is most often first noticed within primary care settings, placing clinicians in these settings in a unique position to offer early diagnosis as well as management (Lingam & Scott, 2014). Nonadherence to antidepressant medications contributes very much to the under treatment of depression in psychiatric patients within primary care settings (Chong, Aslani & Chen, 2011). The purpose of this clinical scholarly project is to look into whether referring adult depressed psychiatric patients from primary care to mental health specialists helps in improving patient medication compliance. The population being addressed in the research comprises adult depressed psychiatric patients. The sample size is forty (n = 40). The data collected was analyzed using SPSS software. The overall results of the study showed that the rate of medical adherence for the depressed psychiatric patients rose by 30% from 42.5% at the primary care setting to 72.5% after they were referred to a mental health specialist. The implication is that adult psychiatric patients who have depressive disorders in primary care should always be referred to mental health specialists as this helps to improve their adherence to medicines.
Referring adult depressed psychiatric patients from primary care to a mental health specialist to improve medication compliance
Overview
This chapter of the paper introduces the problem and summarizes the significance. The problem being investigated in this clinical scholarly project is whether referring adult depressed psychiatric patients from primary care to mental health specialists helps in improving their adherence to medications. Non-adherence to medications for depression is a major impediment to successfully treating depression in clinical practice (Chong, Aslani & Chen, 2011). Adherence is understood as the degree to which the behaviour of an individual is consistent with the medical advice provided (Chong, Aslani & Chen, 2011). There are 2 major facets of adherence problems with the antidepressant medicines: medication non-compliance, which is the lack of consistency with the treatment regime in the context of ongoing use, and medication non-persistence or premature discontinuation of antidepressants (Lingam & Scott, 2014).
Depression is a chronic illness which is most often first noticed within primary care settings, placing clinicians in these settings in a unique position to offer early diagnosis as well as management (Rowland & Bower, 2010). Researchers have reported that a lack of experience and training, a lack of access to mental health specialists, and time constraints greatly increase primary care clinicians’ discomfort levels whenever they work with depressed patients (Rowland & Bower, 2010). Nonadherence to antidepressant medications contributes very much to the undertreatment of depression in psychiatric patients within primary care settings. Nonadherence to medication adherenc...