Primary Care and General Pediatrics

Background: Doctors of primary health care should always been trained to screen for depression among their asthmatic, hypertensive and cardio-vascular patients.  The mild to moderate cases of depression can be screened, diagnosed and managed at the primary care level unless it is severe with suicidal ideation or resistant to treatment after 12 months of follow up, in that case it has to be referred to the hospital. 

Objectives: To study the proportion of asthmatic, hypertensive and ischemic heart patients who are screened for depression. To study the percentage of those who are suspected to have depression according to PHQ 9 tool out of those who are screened .To identify actions taken when suspecting a case of depression among asthmatic hypertensive and ischemic heart patients.

Results:  The study revealed socio-demographic distribution of study sample, e.g.    As age group 50-59 and 60+ were the highest  groups 29.6% and 30.8 respectively,  female were more than male 57.5%,  UAE nationality were about 77.2%  comparing with  expatriates, 85.8% of the study population were Married, about 32.0% of the  sample were having higher education, and 54.1% were having no work. The study showed that  86.4% of the sample were having hypertension compared to 8.7 asthma  and 3.2% IHD,  the study revealed that  about 6.6% of  sample who screened for  depression were   diagnosed as depression . 2.4 % of depression cases were mild depression and similar were moderate. The study revealed that about 40.5% of assigned health care provider was committed to carry out screening for depression among NCD patients at primary health care facilities settings while almost 60% were not. 

Conclusion: An operational gap while applying screening of depression among NCD patient at Primary health care facilities by health care providers has been significantly figured out, lack of training, lack of awareness and weaknesses of auditing culture were among the main reasons behind. Training of health care providers, creating a culture of auditing at institutional and individual level and empowering adherence to standards, guidelines will be the effective strategies to increase percentage of conducting screening for depression among asthmatic, hypertensive and ischemic heart patients, and subsequently increase the percentage of those who will receive treatment and improve their treatment outcomes.