English Summary

With an ageing society and an increase in multimorbidity, mental illness and its complexity are on the rise. Depression is among the most common diagnoses especially in the Primary Care setting where most of its treatment takes place. General practitioners (GPs) therefore play an important role in the care of patients with depression. However, GPs facechallenges regarding the detection, diagnosis and treatment of depression. Somatic symptoms often co-occur with depression and may hinder the diagnosis and treatment putting both the success of the therapy and treatment safety in jeopardy. Even though evidence-based guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of depression have been around for a long period of time, their implementation still seems to be scarce.
The goal of our project is to support GPs in coping with these challenges and to improve the care of patients with depression in the primary care setting. Divided into three main projects, i.e. the diagnosis, the treatment and their implementation, new instruments adapted to the primary care context are systematically developed according to the principle of the Chronic Care Model (CCM):

Diagnosis: New algorithms will be developed to support its diagnosis. Patient- and GP-related factors will be considered in addition to established parameters. Additionally, a new approach for the detection of suicidal behaviour will be piloted and optimized.
Treatment: Tools to help the psychoeducation of patients, their monitoring, the case management and the control of medication intake will be developed and evaluated.
Implementation: Barriers and facilitators for the implementation of guideline-oriented treatment in primary care will be identified. Based on these findings we will develop and evaluate possible solutions.
Early career scientists will be trained to advance clinical research in the primary care setting. The aim is to effectively support both health care providers and stakeholders and improve the future treatment of depression in Primary Care.
POKAL provides a comprehensive qualification concept that enables doctoral candidates from relevant disciplines, as well as prospective GPs to receive a structured scientific education parallel to their clinical training. It allows graduate students to improve their clinical as well as scientific skills. The PIs are internationally renowned experts in the fields of Primary Care, Psychology, Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, Public Health and Information Technology.