The effectiveness of risk assessment of depression at first contact in primary care

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K10019
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 58010:Medical management and medical sociology-related
• Research Institution: Kurume University
• Principal Investigator: Megumi Fujieda 久留米大学, 医学部, 助教 (80420735)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 自殺対策 / うつ病

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The number of suicides in Japan in 2017 was 21,321, and depression was reported in 50% to 87% of completed suicides. However, according to one meta-analysis, almost half of depressive patients were not identified in primary care. Thus, we investigated the effectiveness of risk assessment of depression at first contact on prevention of depression and suicidal ideation. We developed the risk assessment using depression-related factors identified in our previous studies. Participants were new patients aged 35-64 years recruited from internal medicine clinics in Japan. The repeated COVID-19 outbreaks have substantially increased the workload at internal medicine clinics. Therefore, data collected from these sites during the peak pandemic period and non-pandemic periods may not show consistent quality, potentially introducing serious bias and compromising the study's validity. Consequently, conducting this research under these circumstances was very difficult and we terminated the study.

Free Research Field

精神医学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

新型コロナウイルスの流行により研究実施は極めて困難であった。