Improve Care For Depression ...

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beginning of the study, 71% no longer had suicidal thoughts in the intervention practices conducted eight months later.

In contrast, only 44% of the usual care patients who had suicidal thoughts at entry to the study lost these thoughts by the eighth month of follow-up.

Practices offering the care management intervention were more effective in reducing symptoms of major depression early in treatment.

The beneficial effect of the care management intervention peaked at four months. However, one year later, the level of depressive symptoms was similar in practices with care managers and practices offering the usual care.

"Staying depressed for a year is a big problem because it means a year of disability and of increased risk for suicide," said Dr. Katz, principal investigator of PROSPECT’s Phila-delphia site and Professor of Psy-chiatry at the University of Pennsyl-vania. "Even if you recover in the end, it’s not something you would wish on someone."