| dc.description.abstract | This Dissertation is a synthesis of current literature and guidelines to develop the Simplified Prescribing Tool. The Simplified Prescribing Tool provides a guide to treating depression within the Family Practice discipline. The tool contains information that focuses on correctly diagnosing depression and the severity of the depression. The tool provides general guidelines for pharmacological treatment and an algorithm created by the author. The algorithm guides the provider through the process of prescribing. Finally, the tool also includes information on the management of depression throughout treatment until remission of the depression or referral onto a psychiatric care specialist. The main focus was pharmacological treatment; however, the tool also included non-pharmacological consideration for treatment of depression. Data on the applicability of the synthesized tool were gathered by first surveying a group of psychiatric professionals for accuracy of the content contained in the tool. The second step in evaluation of the tool was to survey a group of practicing providers; the group included nurse practitioners, physicians, and physician assistants. This final step was carried out to fulfill the main goal of the paper, namely to see if the tool’s content was accurate and if the layout of the tool would lead to use in practice. After surveying the opinions of primary care practitioners, the data were grouped based on flow of the tool, the accuracy of the content, and applicability to practice. The general consensus was that primary care practitioners could readily use the Simplified Prescribing Tool in practice. This was seen as both a successful development of Simplified Prescribing Tool and as an indication for further research into this type of treatment modality. | en_US |
