Managing Depression and Medical Comorbidities

Caring for patients with depression who have comorbid medical conditions is a major challenge for primary care physicians. Depression is often difficult to diagnose in a primary care setting, and comorbidity vastly complicates diagnosis because of physiologic interactions and shared symptoms. Furthermore, physicians face the difficulty of developing a treatment plan that improves the outcome of multiple conditions at the same time. Fortunately, because of the recent development of effective and well-tolerated antidepressants, successful treatment and long-term management of depression are relatively straightforward and often greatly improve the status of the comorbid illness as well by improving overall function, treatment adherence, recovery rates, and survival time.