[Improving care for depressed patients: what is added by GP's meetings?].

PURPOSE

To show what French GP's have to say about their management of depressed patients, and how to improve it.

METHODS

GP's forum discussions, as peer groups, controlled by an independent moderator and recorded by another, both Gp's. Reports have been synthesised through a list of items, until saturation.

RESULTS

83 reports have been analysed. The most important difficulties were about diagnosis of depression (patient's denial, multiplicity of complaints, polypathology), about treatment (bad acceptability of antidepressants, difficulties to access to a psychotherapy) and about care organisation (exchange between GP's and psychiatrists are difficult and unusual).

DISCUSSION

Questions about quality of GP's care to depressed patients come from populations which differ from GP's patients.

CONCLUSION

The specificity of primary care exercise should be taken into account to elaborate recommendations and to evaluate quality of care.