It is estimated that up to 14 million adults in the United States are affected by depression every year. More so, up to 35 million Americans are likely to be affected by depression at some point in their lives. As such, depression is a major behavioral health issue in the United States today whose literature is critical to public health outcomes. More so, depression also indicates the presence of another mental illness. Therefore, treating depression means that the health provider will almost always be treating another mental health disorder (DeRubeis, Siegle, & Hollon, 2008). This paper evaluates the quality of literature evaluated in the course of treatment outcomes for depression using the Gold Standard Scale (GSS).
Cognitive and medicinal approaches to treating depression were evaluated in “ Cognitive therapy vs. medications for depression: Treatment outcomes and neural mechanisms ”. The study compared cognitive therapy and antidepressant medicines vis-à-vis their effectiveness in treating depression (DeRubeis, Siegle, & Hollon, 2008). This study has the highest standard of evidence by critically reviewing evidence on the subject from multiple resources, including critically appraised topics and systematic reviews. The article considers research items on the subject from as early as 1960s to determine the efficacy of both mental health interventions being contemplated. As such, this article provides an example of the highest form of evidence – a systematic review.
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Drug treatment for depression was also evaluated in the research “ Antidepressant drug-specific prediction of depression treatment outcomes from genetic and clinical variables ”. This study sought to understand why some patients respond properly to antidepressant drugs while others do not. As such, this research contemplated a quantitative approach to determining patient treatment of depression using specific drugs to evaluate the impact of genetic and clinical variables (Iniesta, et al., 2018). A summary of literature was provided in the introductory section making reference to studies critical to the issue at hand. Notwithstanding, the quality of evidence in this article was limited in that there was a lot of unfiltered information from the randomized controlled trial. This provided the second level of evidence; unfiltered information is not considered as strong evidence.
The final study contemplated for this review was “ Treatment outcomes in depression: comparison of remote treatment through tele-psychiatry to in-person treatment .” This study also considered the literature review within the introductory section, where a discussion of tele-psychiatry development is provided in brief (Ruskin, et al., 2004). More so, the study reviews the use of tele-psychiatry in various mental health disorders, including schizophrenia and major depression. Patients were asked for feedback in this study in the form of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), which opens it up to the possibility of unfiltered information. Therefore, the evidence in this study is not considered as strong evidence since the findings remain largely unverified. The study found that both in-person treatment and remote tele-psychiatry had comparable outcomes for depression treatment, but systematic reviews or appraisals were not given to this effect.
References
DeRubeis, R. J., Siegle, G. J., & Hollon, S. D. (2008). Cognitive therapy versus medication for depression: treatment outcomes and neural mechanisms. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(10) , 788.
Iniesta, R., Hodgson, K., Stahl, D., Malki, K., Maier, W., Rietschel, M., & Souery, D. (2018). Antidepressant drug-specific prediction of depression treatment outcomes from genetic and clinical variables. Scientific reports, 8(1) , 5530.
Ruskin, P. E., Silver-Aylaian, M., Kling, M. A., Reed, S. A., Bradham, D. D., Hebel, J. R., & Hauser, P. (2004). Treatment outcomes in depression: comparison of remote treatment through telepsychiatry to in-person treatment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(8) , 1471-1476.
