PROMDEP

Patient-reported outcome measures for monitoring primary care patients with depression – randomised controlled trial.

The PROMDEP RCT will look at whether giving personal feedback to people being treated for depression might help them get better more quickly. This will be done by using the PHQ-9 depression symptom questionnaire as a patient reported outcome measure (or 'PROM') and feeding back the results to the patients themselves, and the practitioners looking after them, together with brief suggestions for treatment relevant to the severity of the patient’s depression.

The aim is to answer the following research question: What is the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of assessing primary care patients with depression or low mood soon after diagnosis and again at follow-up 10-35 days later, using the PHQ-9 questionnaire combined with patient and practitioner feedback and guidance on treatment?

This is a cluster randomised controlled trial so whole practices will be randomly allocated to either:

1. Intervention arm, where patients will complete the PHQ-9, to inform treatment.
2. Control arm, where participants will receive usual treatment, but will not use the PHQ-9.

Who can take part?