Depression, quality of life and primary care: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: To estimate the presence of depression and impairment of quality of life in primary care and identify correlations with demographics and chronic diseases.

Materials And Methods: 500 people (220 men) that visited the Gytheio Health Center, Greece, participated in the study answering a study questionnaire that included demographic and somatometric data, medical history, the Zung self-rating depression scale (SDS-Zung) and the Short Form 12 (SF-12) scale for quality of life evaluation with a mental component scale (MCS) and a physical component scale (PCS).

Results: 163 persons (32.6% of the study population) had SDS-Zung scores over 50 indicating depressive symptomatology. Of those 22% of the study population (70% women) had no awareness of their problem and were under no treatment; 80 (16% of the study population) had mild depressive symptoms (SDS-Zung: 53.12±0.6 [95% CI]) and physical impairment: MCS12: 44.32±1.9 (95% CI), PCS: 39.16±2.2 (95% CI) (p<0.005) and 23 (4.6% of study population) had moderate symptoms (SDS-Zung: 63.82±1.34 [95% CI]), with mental and physical impairment: MCS12: 36.99±1.88 (95% CI), PCS: 34.83±5.12 (95% CI) (p<0.005) adjusted for age, sex and co-morbidities. Arthritis and COPD were associated with depressive symptomatology and physical impairment (p<0.05) and coronary heart disease and congestive heart failure with physical impairment (p<0.005). Patients under anti-depressive medication had significant depressive symptomatology and decreased quality of life (p<0.0005).

Conclusion: The prevalence of both depressive symptomatology and impairment of quality of life is significant and primary care with simple, validated tools can be the setting for identifying and helping such patients.