Abstract
Mental health problems are a common reason patients present for evaluation in the acute care setting. Recognition of depression can save lives by prevention of suicide, improvement of quality of life for the patient and their family, as well as prevention of unnecessary health-care visits for somatic complaints related to their emotional problems. When deciding about disposition of patients with depression, it is important to consider a patient’s support system, their ability to follow up with psychiatry, and the presence of high-risk features in their history and presentation. For acute care providers who initiate pharmacotherapy for depression, it is important to know the side effect profiles of the drugs and choose drugs that best match the needs of the patient. Those who do not prescribe the drugs would do well to remember their side effects as they are commonly used to overdose. Pitfalls in treating depressed patients include failure to recognize depression, failure to ask about patient’s plan for suicide, failure to work up patients who state they were only making a suicidal gesture, and failure to provide a 1:1 sitter for patients who may harm themselves or others.
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Barton, J.B., Allen, B.R. (2017). Depression. In: Desai, B., Desai, A. (eds) Primary Care for Emergency Physicians. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44360-7_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44360-7_27
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