To evaluate the effect of the Aging Brain Care (ABC) Medical Home program’s depression module on patients’ depression severity measurement over time.
Patients enrolled in the ABC Medical Home program between October 1, 2012 and March 31, 2014.
The response of 773 enrolled patients who had multiple patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores recorded in the ABC Medical Home program’s depression care protocol was evaluated. Repeatedly measured PHQ-9 change scores were the dependent variables in the mixed effects models, and demographic and comorbid medical conditions were tested as potential independent variables while including random effects for time and intercept.
Among those patients with baseline PHQ-9 scores >10, there was a significant decrease in PHQ-9 scores over time ( P<0.001); however, the effect differed by gender ( P=0.015). On average, women’s scores (4.5 point drop at 1 month) improved faster than men’s scores (1 point drop at 1 month). Moreover, both men and women had a predicted drop of 7 points (>50% decline from baseline) on the PHQ-9 at 6 months.