News Mental Health News Docs and suicide: "Let's not talk about it" | Docs and suicide: "Let's not talk about it" |
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Primary care physicians
do not consistently ask their depressed patients about suicide,
according to new research.
"Suicide is a preventable cause of mortality," first author Dr. Mitchell D. Feldman from University of California, San Francisco noted in comments to Reuters Health. "Patients frequently visit their doctor when they are depressed and while they may not feel comfortable initiating a conversation about suicide, they will usually share their thoughts and feelings with their doctor if it is broached in a respectful and sensitive manner." To see how often doctors confronted with depressed patients bring up the topic of suicide, Feldman and colleagues had trained "patients" portraying depression or adjustment disorder make visits to 152 primary care doctors between May 2003 and May 2004. During some of these visits, they asked for an antidepressant medication.
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