[Evaluation of Germany's Sixth National Health Target Entitled "Depressive Illnesses - Prevention, Early Diagnosis, Sustainable Treatment": Developments over the Last 10 Years].

Background: Revision of the evaluation concept of Germany's sixth national health target entitled "Depressive illnesses - prevention, early diagnosis, sustainable treatment" developed in 2006.

Objectives: Analysis of available of data since 2006 to determine if the objectives of the health target and its sub-goals (awareness, prevention, diagnosis/indication/therapy, health care structure, patient empowerment, rehabilitation) were achieved.

Materials And Methods: The 6 sub-goals were screened in terms of indicators of progress towards goal over the last decade, and then examined for accessible data sources.

Results: The sub-goal prevention yielded routine data from t0 onwards (start of activities). The other sub-goals awareness, diagnosis, and health care provided selective data sources, generated mostly by scientific studies. An important milestone within the sub-goal of diagnosis/indication/therapy was the development of the National Clinical Practice guideline for depression. Data were sparse in the areas rehabilitation and patient empowerment.

Conclusions: The six sub-goals are still valid. Yet, the validity of the data in terms of the evaluation of the health target is limited mainly because of the cross-sectional designs of studies. Prospective systematic surveys are required to further evaluate the national health target and its implementation for both qualitative and quantitative longitudinal indicators.