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Review
. 2021 Jan 14:17:79-90.
doi: 10.2147/NDT.S283731. eCollection 2021.

Implementing Measurement-Based Care for Depression: Practical Solutions for Psychiatrists and Primary Care Physicians

Ran Ha Hong  1 , Jill K Murphy  1 , Erin E Michalak  1 , Trisha Chakrabarty  1 , Zuowei Wang  2 , Sagar V Parikh  3 , Larry Culpepper  4 , Lakshmi N Yatham  1 , Raymond W Lam #  1 , Jun Chen #  5
Affiliations
Review

Implementing Measurement-Based Care for Depression: Practical Solutions for Psychiatrists and Primary Care Physicians

Ran Ha Hong et al. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. .

Abstract

Measurement-based care (MBC) can be defined as the clinical practice in which care providers collect patient data through validated outcome scales and use the results to guide their decision-making processes. Despite growing evidence supporting the effectiveness of MBC for depression and other mental health conditions, many physicians and mental health clinicians have yet to adopt MBC practice. In part, this is due to individual and organizational barriers to implementing MBC in busy clinical settings. In this paper, we briefly review the evidence for the efficacy of MBC focusing on pharmacological management of depression and provide example clinical scenarios to illustrate its potential clinical utility in psychiatric settings. We discuss the barriers and challenges for MBC adoption and then address these by suggesting simple solutions to implement MBC for depression care, including recommended outcome scales, monitoring tools, and technology solutions such as cloud-based MBC services and mobile health apps for mood tracking. The availability of MBC tools, ranging from paper-pencil questionnaires to mobile health technology, can allow psychiatrists and clinicians in all types of practice settings to easily incorporate MBC into their practices and improve outcomes for their patients with depression.

Keywords: depression; implementation; major depressive disorder; measurement; measurement-based care; outcomes; patient-reported outcome measures; scales.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ran Ha Hong reports grants from UBC Faculty of Medicine, during the conduct of the study. Jill K Murphy reports grants from Global Alliance for Chronic Disease/Canadian Institutes of Health Research, during the conduct of the study. Erin E. Michalak has received funding to support patient education initiatives from Otsuka. Trisha Chakrabarty reports grants from Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and National Research Council Canada, outside the submitted work. Sagar V. Parikh reports grants and personal fees from Takeda, grants from Sage, personal fees from Aifred, Mensante, and Janssen, outside the submitted work. Larry Culpepper reports personal fees from AbbVie Pharmaceuticals, Allergan Pharmaceuticals, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Eisai, Merck, Takeda and Physicians Postgraduate Press, owns stock in M3 Information, outside the submitted work. Lakshmi N. Yatham reports personal fees from Alkermes, DSP, Merck, Intracellular Therapeutics, Sanofi, Lundbeck, and Sunovion, grants from Allergan, outside the submitted work. Raymond W. Lam reports grants from Canadian Institutes of Health Research, during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Allergan, Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments, Canadian Psychiatric Association, Hansoh, Janssen, Lundbeck, Lundbeck Institute, Myriad Neuroscience, Otsuka, and Pfizer, and grants from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, BC Leading Edge Foundation, Healthy Minds Canada, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, MITACS, Ontario Brain Institute, St. Jude Medical, University Health Network Foundation, and VGH-UBCH Foundation, outside the submitted work. The authors report no other potential conflicts of interest for this work.

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