Depression Screening Among Adolescents and Adults in Primary Care

Background: Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders in the United States. Depression screening is recommended during all primary care visits. However, screening for depression does not occur consistently in primary care settings. The purpose of this project is to increase depression screening among adolescent (ages 12 to 17) and adult patients, as these are the primary age groups seen in the suburban primary care setting where this project was conducted. Methods: A pretest-posttest design was used to evaluate change in depression screening following the implementation of a new policy. This was conducted in a suburban primary care setting in the western region of the United States. The new policy included medical assistants initiating depression screening with the completion of the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) form at the start of the visit. All patients of this primary care practice were also offered educational pamphlets on depression screening by the medical assistants. Results: Pre-intervention, 62% (n=62) of randomly selected patients were screened for depression. Post intervention 64% (n=64) of randomly selected patients were screened for depression resulting in a two-percent increase in depression screening. Conclusion: The implementation of depression screening with this new policy showed mild improvement with a two-percent increase in patients screened for depression. Additional research is needed to better understand the barriers and limitations of implementing depression screening in a primary care setting.