New funding to study the care of depression in general practice

A University of Southampton specialist in depression research has successfully led a novel bid for funding from the NHS Health Technology Assessment Programme to examine the medical treatment of depression in general practices.

This 30-month multi-centre study known as THREAD (THREshold for AntiDepressant treatment) was awarded £485,527 by the programme and is the latest medical study at the University of Southampton examining the treatment of depression in the UK.

Professor Tony Kendrick and Professor Robert Peveler from the Primary Medical Care and Psychiatry groups in the University's School of Medicine will examine the use of fluoxetine (also known as 'Prozac') by general practitioners as a way to treat depression.

Depression is a huge public health problem, which is largely dealt with by GPs. It is estimated around 80 million working days a year are lost because of depression in England alone - and that drug treatments for depression currently cost the nation more than £300m each year, with the average GP writing four antidepressant prescriptions every working day.

Professor Kendrick and Peveler's research will provide general practitioners with essential information on the level of severity of depression for which antidepressants might be prescribed and which social factors and individual patient attributes are important to take into account when deciding whether or not to intervene medically.

Professor Kendrick said: "GPs are caught between a rock and a hard place when deciding whether or not to give someone the label of depression and intervene with medical treatment. On the one hand we are accused of missing treatable depression, and on the other we are accused of wanting to medicalise unhappiness. More research evidence, gathered in the primary care setting rather than in hospitals, is needed to guide GPs in their treatment decisions."