TY - JOUR T1 - Depression screening and management programmes with staff assistance in primary care increase response and remission rates, but programmes without staff assistance do not show benefits JF - Evidence Based Medicine JO - Evid Based Med SP - 49 LP - 50 DO - 10.1136/ebm1046 VL - 15 IS - 2 AU - Alex J Mitchell Y1 - 2010/04/01 UR - http://ebm.bmj.com/content/15/2/49.abstract N2 - Commentary on: O'Connor EA, Whitlock EP, Beil TL, et al. Screening for depression in adult patients in primary care settings: a systematic evidence review. Ann Intern Med 2009;151:793–803.OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science Screening for depression in primary care has become a national priority in many countries, although its benefits remain hotly contested. O'Connor and colleagues' systematic review attempts to aid the US Preventive Services Task Force in updating its 2002 recommendations and is aimed at US primary care physicians. Previous reviews have often excluded studies of quality improvement/collaborative care and have generally found a minimal benefit of screening alone.1 The scope of this review (which was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) was to examine the influence of screening on broadly defined patient outcomes and to extend the intervention to include complex quality improvement interventions. Traditionally, the examination of screening has been limited to the question of whether screening benefits the detection of depression. In … ER -