The use of internationally validated clinical scales is necessary for work quality and reliable equipment.

-The inclusion of computerized clinical history PHQ-9 scaling of the Institut Català de la Salut will facilitate assessment and monitoring of patients with depression, early detection of the risk of suicide

-depression affects every year 10% of persons treated in primary care centres

Barcelona, February 2013.- of international classifications psychiatric diagnostic criteria are obliged to use in daily clinical practice and research. Otherwise, a diagnosis is not considered reliable or valid. So noted by the President of the Catalan society of Psychiatry and Mental health, the doctor Diego j. Palao Vidal, as a result of the training course in clinical scales of measurement in psychiatry.

Currently, psychiatric evaluation tools can be of two types: interviews of psychiatric diagnosis and clinical assessment scales. The first is oriented to facilitate specific diagnosis, while the second is used to measure the severity of the clinical status, monitor the evolution and the response to treatment, or even carry out a screening of pathologies.

According to Dr. Diego J. Palao, “scales by themselves have no diagnostic value”, but they are necessary to complement and validate the interview, because they facilitate the quantification of symptoms and monitor therapeutic response through the observed changes. Items that are taken into account are, among others, pathological sadness, loss of the ability to enjoy, asthenia or fatigue, loss of appetite and/or weight, notions of guilt or feelings of worthlessness, sleep disorders and the ideas of death.

In Spain, among the specialists most commonly used scale is the Hamilton depression scale. You can also highlight the Beck Depression interview (BDI), which can be administered by the patient and values more fully the psychological symptoms of depression. In the same vein, there is the PHQ-9 scale, which can also be used by the patient to monitor their clinical status.

The latter, the PHQ-9, has been integrated into guide computed of the depression, which will be available in the computerized clinical history of the Institut Català de la Salut in the coming months. This will facilitate the assessment and follow-up from the primary care of people with depression, as well as the early detection of the risk of suicide.

In addition, “the use of this scale may favour the access of people with serious depression or risk of suicide in the specialized consultations and contribute to the fight against suicide, which tends to increase in situations of crisis,” added the President of the Catalan society of Psychiatry and Mental health of the Academy of medical sciences and health of Catalonia and Balearic IslandsHe stressed that depression affects 10% of people treated in the primary care annually.

Information about Academy ”:

The Academy of medical sciences and health of Catalonia and Balearic Islands is an entity founded in 1872, with officially recognized legal personality, and constitutes a forum and meeting place for professionals in the health of Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia and Andorra. It is an institution in the service of the country independent and not linked to any official body.

Its purpose is to encourage the study and the cultivation of the Sciences of health in all its aspects: human, technical, social and civic, both in its care as a teacher and research.

It is a lively scientific community, the collective effort, which adapts to the needs and scientific circumstances of the moment, working in collaboration with other medical, biological and pharmaceutical, national and foreign companies, with a constant concern for progress.

It is the most important medical Corporation of our country, by the number of partners, more than 25,000. It is composed of 80 scientific societies that bring together professionals in the health sciences. In the academic year 2010-2011 the volume of scientific activities jointly developed was higher than 1700 acts and professionals attending reached 40,000 people.

It is present around Catalonia, and Balearic Islands, Valencia and Andorra, with its 22 subsidiaries and, due to its special characteristics, fruit of the momentum of civil society, can be seen that it is a unique institution.