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Major Depressive Disorder and Treating to Remission

Target Audience:

Psychiatrists, primary care physicians, pharmacists, and other health care practitioners who manage patients with major depression.

Program Overview:

After the initiation of antidepressant monotherapy, the importance of consistently and carefully monitoring patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) cannot be overemphasized. Most clinicians would agree that there is a clinical urgency to identify partial responders and nonresponders. Having a plan in place and clinical tools available helps optimize this process and forms the basis of timely, measurement-based care.

Compelling evidence indicates that residual symptoms at the end of a depressive episode, even if these symptoms are mild, are associated with significant psychosocial disability, an increased risk of relapse, and a more than three times increased speed of relapse return. Presence of residual symptoms may even be a stronger predictor of MDD recurrence than a history of multiple MDD episodes.

This educational activity will help clinicians improve monitoring of patients with MDD to identify cases that are treatment-resistant to monotherapy and to initiate the best, appropriate clinical plan to optimize pharmacotherapy toward a goal of preventing relapse.

Credit Types

0.5 AMA PRA Category 1™ Credit Hours

0.5 Pharmacy Education Contact Hours (0.05 CEUs)

All other healthcare professionals completing this course will be issued a statement of participation.