“If the patient is not depressed, they should be offered prophylaxis to prevent emergent depression,” he said. “If they decline, they should continue to be monitored.”
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April 2016Mary Beth Nierengarten is a freelance medical writer based in Minnesota.
What to Ask Your Patients about Depression
Over the past two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?
- Little interest or pleasure in doing things
- Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
- Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much
- Feeling tired or having little energy
- Poor appetite or overeating
- Feeling bad about yourself—or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down
- Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television
- Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed, or the opposite—being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual
- Thoughts that you would be better off dead or hurting yourself in some way
If you checked off any problems, how difficult have these problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?
Source: Adapted from the PHQ Nine-Symptom Depression Scale (J Clin Oncol. 2014;32:1605-1619).