These patients are often left waiting too long before they’re assessed for treatment response, putting them at higher risk of suicide.LEP,ANA
Even among patients with MDD who do respond to a first antidepressant treatment, as many as two thirds do not recover fully, and continue to experience residual symptoms.ALH,RUS
What’s more, the proportion of MDD patients who achieve remission decreases significantly after each treatment failure, from 31% with a second treatment, to 14% with a third, and 13% with a fourth.*,RUS
Between 2005 and 2015, the number of people living with MDD increased by almost a fifth, and it now affects approximately 40.3 million people.WHO3
Studies suggest that many people in Western Europe, including healthcare professionals, still have stigmatising attitudes about mental illness, which is more prevalent in the Western world compared to Asian and African countries.COR
In addition to its effect on patients’ quality of life,ANA,LEU MDD has a significant socio-economic impact, with the highest number of days absent for any physical or mental disorder.MUN Patients who do not achieve remission show higher morbidity, resource use, and productivity losses compared to those in remission.SIC This contributes to the substantial costs associated with the condition: in 2010, these accounted for roughly €92 billion in Europe.**,OLE
In addition to prolonged low mood, MDD causes a wide range of physical, emotional, and cognitive symptoms, including:DSM,APA
MDD can affect people in different ways, depending on how long they have been suffering with the condition, and the impact it has on their daily life. This can range from a loss of pleasure in activities, to thoughts of taking their own life.DSM
With MDD patients already at a 20-fold greater risk of suicide than the general population,LEP a delay in finding an effective treatment may prove life-threatening.ANA
Despite the low levels of remission that patients may experience after receiving three, or even four, treatments,RUS there is still a need to treat with urgency in MDD. With a more urgent approach, treatment could be optimised, to avoid prolonging patient suffering, and increasing the likelihood of both asymptomatic remission, and functional recovery.OLU,GOR,OKU,BUK
Steps urgently need to be taken to help make achieving this remission a reality, including:
Most mental health conditions are managed in primary care, and resource allocation between primary and secondary care is important to ensure that care is given in the most appropriate setting and that there are effective pathways to specialist care for those who need it.DEH
* From a report comparing acute and longer-term treatment outcomes associated with each of four successive steps in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) trial. Remission was defined as a score of ≤5 on the Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self-Report (QIDS-SR16) (equivalent to ≤7 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression [HRSD17]).RUS
** Based on 'best estimates' derived from systematic literature reviews by panels of experts in epidemiology and health economics. The cost estimation model was populated with national statistics from Eurostat to adjust to 2010 values, converting all local currencies to Euros (€), imputing cost for countries where no data were available, and aggregating country estimates to purchasing power parity- adjusted estimates of the total cost of brain disorders in Europe in 2010.
ITEM CODE: CP-136345 | DATE OF PREPARATION: February 2020