Gaps and Disparities in the Treatment of Depression

What is it about?

Many have untreated depression and many of those who are treated do not receive adequate care. Using population-based data, this paper estimates the proportion of people with depression who do not receive minimally adequate care and examines factors associated with variations in depression treatment.

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Why is it important?

Depression is increasingly becoming the leading cause of disability worldwide. To help address this problem, reliable estimates of the gap and disparities in treatment are required. This work presents updated estimates and complements previous studies on the subject that rely solely on self-reported data. Overall results indicate the existence of wide gaps in treatment adequacy with younger individuals (depression prevalence is highest in this group) and men being most at risk for receiving inadequate treatment.