(Wency Leung/ Globe and Mail) — Studies regularly overestimate the prevalence of depression, using inaccurate measures of the disorder, according to a new research paper. As a result, they may give doctors and policy makers a distorted picture of the actual demand for treatment and health-care resources, the authors warn.
In an analysis published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday, the authors found many studies, including large ones published in reputable journals such as JAMA, provided rates of depression that were exaggerated by two or three-fold.
“No one gains by coming up with inaccurate and exaggerated estimates,” says lead author Dr. Brett Thombs, a professor in the department of psychiatry at McGill University. “What we do need to understand is what the burden is out there, how many people [have depression], and then we need to really advocate strongly to make sure those people get better care.”
Thombs, who is a senior investigator at the Lady Davis Institute of Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, emphasizes that many individuals who have depression do not get the care they need. “But by somehow suggesting that we need to be treating two to three times as many people as really are out there, that’s not going to help us find the right people and do a better job treating them,” he says. (…)