Sherard, Gerlene Alert to Improve Screening for Depression. 2024. Radford University, Thesis. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
Depression and obesity often coexist, and healthcare providers play a special role in their early identification and treatment. The United States Preventative Service Task Force (USPSTF) recommended screening all adults with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater and assessing them for depression in primary care settings. However, healthcare providers were challenged to identify those patients with a BMI of 30 or greater who suffer from depression due to the time constraints of a clinical visit, decreased patient engagement in treatment decision-making, and lack of psychosocial resources. Patients with a BMI of 30 or greater and suffering from depression may not be identified if standards of practice for screening are not followed. Adding an electronic health record (EHR) alert may help providers increase the incidence of screening for those patients with a BMI of 30 or greater for early identification and treatment of depression. The purpose of this study was to examine if integrating an EHR alert into patient charts increased the incidence of screening patients with a BMI of 30 or greater for early identification and treatment of depression. After an Institutional Review Board approval, this quality improvement study used a retrospective-prospective design for examining the relationship between the study variables. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) was used to identify depression. The study took place in North Virginia at an integrated primary care clinic. Retrospectively, out of 100, only 33 charts, and prospectively, out of 100, only 30 charts met the inclusion criteria. The charts were reviewed to examine if the incidents of screening for depression increased after the integration of the EHR alerts in the patient’s chart. Pearson's correlations were calculated, and the results showed a moderate correlation of 0.50 and a p-value of 0.047, indicating a statistically significant relationship between EHR alerts to improve screening for depression in patients with a BMI of 30 or greater and the early identification and treatment of depression. This study reinforced the standards of care for screening patients with a BMI of 30 or greater for depression, which helped reduce healthcare disparities. Keywords: obesity, BMI ≥ 30, depression screening, primary care, PHQ-9
| Item Type: | Thesis |
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| Subjects: | R Medicine > RT Nursing |
| Divisions: | Radford University > College of Nursing |
| Date Deposited: | 04 Apr 2025 05:27 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Apr 2025 05:27 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/1160 |
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