Common Mental Health Disorders: Identification and Pathways to Care

Excerpt

This new guideline covers the identification and pathways to care for adults with common mental health disorders, specifically depression, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The vast majority of depressive and anxiety disorders that are diagnosed are treated in primary care, but recognition of anxiety disorders, in particular, is poor. The focus of this guideline is to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders, and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.

The importance and uniqueness of this new guideline, which is aimed at primary care practitioners, managers and commissioners, is in bringing together treatment and referral advice from existing NICE mental health guidelines and combining it with new recommendations, specifically for this guideline.

The guideline contains the method developed especially for this guideline and all the evidence on access to healthcare, identification of common mental health disorders, assessment of risk and need for treatment, and systems for organising local care pathways, including the characteristics of studies in an accompanying appendix.