Algorithm Aids Depression Care

Researchers are taking what they have learned about depression and its treatment to real-world practice settings with a pilot computer program that prompts clinicians to take certain steps as they treat patients with depression.

The computerized algorithm is based on findings from the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D), a six-year, $33 million study that has included more than 4,000 patients from sites from across the country (see Original article: Children Benefit When Moms Get Depression Treatment). The study provided evidence backing step-by-step treatment of patients with treatment-resistant depression and found that half of depressed patients became symptom-free or experienced improvement after the first two medication trials.

Madhukar Trivedi, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and director of the UT Southwestern Mood Disorders Research Program and Clinic and one of the leaders of the STAR*D study developed the computer program and is testing it at Centerstone, a nonprofit community mental health organization with facilities in Tennessee and Indiana.

The computer software provides a step-by-step protocol to assist physicians as they treat patients with depression by incorporating evidence-based algorithms from STAR*D to guide clinicians in their treatment.

“My interest is in helping clinicians, researchers, and patients in real-practice settings,” Trivedi said in a statement issued by UT Southwestern Medical Center in June. “It's a different magnitude of complexity when you go to a busy clinical practice setting away from academic centers,” he noted.

The work is funded by a $1.2 million grant over three years from the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality. ▪