A Tale Of Two Countries
Abstract
A Tale Of Two Countries Reinventing Depression: A History of the Treatment of Depression in Primary Care, 1940–2004 by Christopher M. Callahan and German E. Berrios (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 240 pp., $49.95 The development of effective treatments for primary care patients who present with depressive symptoms has been the subject of intense research efforts and growing public interest for at least the past four decades. Those entering the mental health services research field in recent years might take for granted our knowledge of depression’s clinical epidemiology in primary care practice—that is, a point prevalence rate of 6–10 percent for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) major depression and a similar rate for either minor depression or dysthymia. Newcomers to the field might also think little of how their predecessors developed such research instruments as the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression to track the severity of mood episodes; how they formulated the landmark 1993 Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) Clinical Practice Guideline report, which recommended best treatment practices based on then-available evidence; or how they conducted the dozen or so well-designed clinical trial studies that conclusively established the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness) of these guidelines