Date of Presentation

5-5-2022 12:00 AM

College

School of Osteopathic Medicine

Poster Abstract

General anxiety and major depressive disorder are common and treatable mental health disorders. The US Preventive Services Task Force provides strong evidence that early screening helps identify depression in primary care settings, promotes intervention and facilitates treatment. Many medical offices use validated screening tools, GAD-7 and PHQ-9, to measure symptom severities and further help guide treatment modalities for patients with anxiety and depression, respectively. The Rowan Community Health Clinic (RCHC) in Lindenwold, NJ is a student-run free clinic that serves patients regardless of patient gender, race, income, or insurance status. This study aims to determine if there is a need to build internal infrastructure at RCHC for depression and anxiety management. This study started in June 2021 and had a total of 25 patients. Patients were administered both the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 for screening and were given various resources and/or referrals depending on their calculated score. Data was stored in Qualtrics and analyzed in SPSS. While this study had a small sample size, it was evident that both anxiety and depression play a role in our patients’ lives despite not seeing any significant data between minimal and moderate-to-severe depression and/or anxiety. With these tools only being able to measure symptom severity, further psychiatric evaluation is also essential to accurately diagnose mental health disorders. Future steps involve increasing sample size as well as comparing data with insured patients at a Family Medicine office. One of RCHC’s goals is to use our preliminary data in order to start a framework and provide accessible mental health services within our student-run clinic.

Keywords

Depressive Disorder, Mental Health, Health Services Research, Student Run Clinic, Community Mental Health Services, Health Services Accessibility

Disciplines

Community Health | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Family Medicine | Health and Medical Administration | Health Services Research | Medicine and Health Sciences | Mental Disorders | Preventive Medicine | Primary Care | Psychiatric and Mental Health | Psychiatry | Quality Improvement

Document Type

Poster

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May 5th, 12:00 AM

The Need for Depression and Anxiety Screenings at a Student-Run Clinic

General anxiety and major depressive disorder are common and treatable mental health disorders. The US Preventive Services Task Force provides strong evidence that early screening helps identify depression in primary care settings, promotes intervention and facilitates treatment. Many medical offices use validated screening tools, GAD-7 and PHQ-9, to measure symptom severities and further help guide treatment modalities for patients with anxiety and depression, respectively. The Rowan Community Health Clinic (RCHC) in Lindenwold, NJ is a student-run free clinic that serves patients regardless of patient gender, race, income, or insurance status. This study aims to determine if there is a need to build internal infrastructure at RCHC for depression and anxiety management. This study started in June 2021 and had a total of 25 patients. Patients were administered both the GAD-7 and PHQ-9 for screening and were given various resources and/or referrals depending on their calculated score. Data was stored in Qualtrics and analyzed in SPSS. While this study had a small sample size, it was evident that both anxiety and depression play a role in our patients’ lives despite not seeing any significant data between minimal and moderate-to-severe depression and/or anxiety. With these tools only being able to measure symptom severity, further psychiatric evaluation is also essential to accurately diagnose mental health disorders. Future steps involve increasing sample size as well as comparing data with insured patients at a Family Medicine office. One of RCHC’s goals is to use our preliminary data in order to start a framework and provide accessible mental health services within our student-run clinic.

 

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