Depression: a diagnosis aptly used?

Depression is a very common mental disorder which often results in relevant negative consequences ranging from impaired quality of life to an increased suicide rate. Unfortunately, non-psychiatric physicians frequently under-diagnose and under-treat depression. Nevertheless, sometime the diagnosis "depression" is used for mentally well and other mental disorders (i.e. sometimes depression is over-diagnosed). Screening tools were suggested to improve the recognition of mental disorders in everyday clinical work. Studies have shown that the criterion validity of usual screening questionnaires such as the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) is sufficient, while very short questionnaires consisting of one or two questions must not be used because of high misclassification rates. A meta-analysis of randomized trials of screening for depression indicate that screening for depression is probably effective when it is coupled with additional activities such as educational programs for primary care physicians.