THE DOCTOR IS IN

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BY JESSICA SEGOVIA-YAP, MD
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Anxiety and depression assessment

LAST week, we discussed about mindfulness meditation and how it benefits anxiety. For this week, I am going to share with you the assessment tool I use in my clinic to help me detect if my patients are suffering from either anxiety or depression.
Although it could not be used as the only means of diagnosing such disorders it may give both the patient and his/her physician a good grasp of what the patient has.

This assessment tool is a questionnaire composed of statements relevant to either generalized anxiety or “depression”, the latter being largely (but not entirely) composed of reflections of the state of anhedonia.

Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable, such as exercise, hobbies, singing, sexual activities or social interactions.

The questionnaire responses were analyzed in the light of the results of this estimation of the severity of both anxiety and of depression. This enabled a reduction of the number of items in the questionnaire to just seven reflecting anxiety and seven reflecting depression. (Of the seven depression items five reflected aspects of reduction in pleasure response).
Each item had been answered by the patient on a four point (0–3) response category so the possible scores ranged from 0 to 21 for anxiety and 0 to 21 for depression.
An analysis of scores enabled provision of information that a score of 0 to 7 for either subscale could be regarded as being in the normal range, a score of 11 or higher indicating probable presence of the mood disorder and a score of 8 to 10 being just suggestive of the presence of the respective state.
It could then be used to diagnose and subsequently manage the patient’s problems.
I am sharing this with you this week and you may want to try to assess yourself. Should you have doubts about your scores and your feelings maybe it’s about time that you pay a visit to your family doctor or your friendly psychiatrist.

Jessica P. Segovia-Yap, M.D., FPAFP is a Diplomate and Fellow of the Philippine Academy of Family Physicians. She is a practicing Family Medicine Specialist and holds clinic at the Medical Arts Building of Iloilo Mission Hospital. For comments, questions and suggestions, you may email at drjec.is.in@ gmail.com./PN
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