The FNP is conducting a routine follow-up on a patient with depression. The patient reports she is feeling like she can’t go on anymore. The FNP learns that this patient discontinued her medication 3 weeks ago because she couldn’t afford it. What should the FNP do in this situation? Support your response (Mention about different tools for depression evaluation). thank you
Length: A minimum of 275 words, not including references
Citations: At least 2 high-level scholarly reference in APA 7 from within the last 5 years.
Sample Answer
Discussion
Depression is a chronic condition that requires long terms care. Although the current patient was previously prescribed depression medication, she reports hopelessness, which is one of the significant symptoms of depression. If not well managed, hopelessness can transition in to suicide, one of the substantial depression complications. Although the patient reports non-adherence to the treatment plan due to economic barriers, the first intervention by the FNP in helping the patient is confirming the depression diagnosis and assessing for depression complications.
Some of the tools that the provider can use to diagnose depression and assess its complications include The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) and the DSM-5 (Sahni & Agius, 2017). Assessing the severity of depression will help the FNP determine whether the patient will benefit most from medications, psychotherapy, or a combination of both. Once the severity of depression has been determined, the FNP can use several strategies to address the issue of the inability to afford treatment.
First, the FNP should educate the patient on the importance of adhering to the depression treatment plan, including the risk of withdrawal side effects associated with abruptly terminating depression medication. Since care providers are knowledgeable about the various available pharmaceutical outlets in the market, the FNP can direct the patient to the most affordable outlets. The provider can also link the patient to the facility social worker to receive help in registering to the various government health plans that cover the prescription cost. The FNP can also connect the patient with the diverse community resources for depression, including help groups and healthcare facilities offering treatment and prescriptions for free. To further improve affordability, the FNP can prescribe affordable drugs and provide the patient with free depression drugs available at the facility as samples offered by pharmaceutical companies for marketing purposes (DelaCruz et al., 2021). It will be essential for the provider to perform a follow-up after patient discharge to confirm the patent is adhering to the treatment plan.
References
- DelaCruz, J. J., Brennan-Ing, M., Kakolyris, A., & Martinez, O. (2021). The Cost Effectiveness of Mental Health Treatment in the Lifetime of Older Adults with HIV in New York City: A Markov Approach. PharmacoEconomics-Open, 5(2), 221-236. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41669-020-00238-3
- Sahni, A., & Agius, M. (2017). The use of the PHQ9 self-rating scale to assess depression within primary care. Psychiatr Danub, 29(Suppl 3), 615-618. https://www.psychiatria-danubina.com/UserDocsImages/pdf/dnb_vol29_noSuppl%203/dnb_vol29_noSuppl%203_615.pdf
