‘Doing Well’: description of a complex intervention to improve depression care

Aim To describe the service use and clinical outcomes associated with the implementation of a complex intervention designed to improve care for people with depression in a primary care setting. Background Health systems have limited capacity to provide appropriate psychological and pharmacological treatments for people with depression. Guidance on the treatment of depression in primary care in the United Kingdom was clarified by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence in 2004. However, there is little evidence so far of substantial changes in practice: antidepressant prescriptions continue to rise, there is limited access to psychological therapies and uncertainty persists about who should be treated for what and how. Although the welfare of staff is critical to their therapeutic engagement with patients, this is rarely an explicit focus of health systems design. Method An observational study examining the implementation of a complex intervention to improve depression care called ‘Doing Well’, based in 14 general practices in a mixed urban-rural area in Scotland, United Kingdom. A small team of clinicians implemented a programme for people with low mood, depression and adjustment disorder, based on primary care. This programme incorporated a number of changes in standard mental health care, including the following: no ‘severity threshold’ for referral to secondary care; routine use of an objective measure of depression severity with continuous outcome monitoring; prompt access to guided self-help; prompt ‘step-up’ care to more formal psychological therapy or medical care, if indicated; and careful attention to staff training and satisfaction. Findings There was good fidelity to the model of care designed by the programme. There was a high demand for the new service (1.8% of the catchment population each year) but the programme had the capacity to manage this adequately. Clinical outcomes were satisfactory, and antidepressant use adhered to the guidelines.