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Depression and musculoskeletal problems

2008; Royal College of General Practitioners; Volume: 59; Issue: 558 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3399/bjgp09x394879

1478-5242

Kadri Suija, Ruth Kalda, Heidi‐Ingrid Maaroos,

Musculoskeletal Disorders and Rehabilitation

Depression and musculoskeletal problemsA recent study by Mallen et al,¹ published in the October issue of the BJGP, concluded that older patients consulting their GP due to musculoskeletal pain have frequently comorbid depressive symptoms, and that brief depression screening during the consultation can miss a large number of persons with depressive symptoms.The authors found that a total of 51.4% of the study participants had depressive symptoms, according to a screening instrument selfadministered at home (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, HADS), versus only 20.8% on GP-administered screening (involving two questions) during the consultation.Recently, we performed a study, in a general practice in Estonia, as part of the PREDICT (Prediction of Future Episodes of Depression in Primary Medical Care: Evaluation of Risk Factor Profile) study.The study group was formed of consecutive patients (n = 1094), aged 18-75 years, who sought consultation from their family doctor.²Occurrence of depression was assessed by using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) (version 2.1),³ which provides a 6-month depression diagnosis, according to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).We also analysed the medical records of all patients with respect to their comorbidity.A total of 202 participants aged ≥50 years had presented with musculoskeletal pain.Of them 48 (23.8%) were depressed and 154 (76.2%) were non-depressed.Briefly, most older