Exploratory Analysis of Consultation Patterns Prior to the Diagnosis of Depression.

Depression is frequently underdiagnosed or the diagnosis occurs in late stages, mainly because it usually presents as a paucisymptmatic diseorder. Electronic health records (EHRs) are a very useful tool to capture the longitudinal medical history of the patient which may help in diagnosing these patients earlier. We aimed to understand how these patients' consultation patterns are represented in the EHR up until depression diagnosis.