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Surveys among GPs and community facilitators
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GPs and various groups of community facilitators are being surveyed concerning their level of knowledge about symptoms, causes and treatment possibilities of depressive disorders. Additionally, attitudes towards suicidality and current practices how to deal with depressed/suicidal persons in the daily occupational environment are explored. To assess effects of EAAD advanced training courses, those GPs and community facilitators who have participated at educational programmes, are being surveyed again after the training session. In some regions, pilot runs of the survey on knowledge, attitudes and current practices have been conducted among smaller groups of the target population to gain information about the appropriateness of the study design incl. the instrument applied.
The EAAD core items form the basis of surveys among GPs and community facilitators. In addition, a couple of further instruments covering similar areas of information, attitudes or knowledge have been pooled within the network and reviewed by the workgroup on evaluation. It has been agreed that these instruments may additionally be applied on regional level according to individual interests as long as it can be assured that the EAAD core items are covered.
So far, the following instruments are available and applied by EAAD partners:
The questionnaire “depression among the elderly” has been developed by the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (Ziervogel et al. 2005). It has been used in the Nuremberg Alliance against Depression to assess the effectiveness of a training programme for geriatric caregivers. The instrument has been used pre and post training and after a 3 months follow-up. It contains questions on knowledge (symptoms, causes, treatment options), attitudes of depression and professional behaviour (e.g. referral to doctor). It only briefly involves the topic suicidality. In addition, there are some questions on the professional background of the geriatric caregiver.
The “Attitudes towards suicide questionnaire” (ATTS) developed by Salander Renberg & Jacobsson (2003) is restricted to suicidality and contains 36 items asking for beliefs e.g. concerning preventability, predictability or permissiveness of suicidal acts. The psychometric characteristics of the ATTS have already been investigated and the response rates in various samples (general population, coroners, GPs, nurses, politicians etc in different European countries) are high. Conducting the ATTS through telephone interviews, as it has been done in an Irish pilot study (Arensman & Moore-Corry) appeared to be feasible.
The “Depression attitude questionnaire” (DAQ) by Botega (1992) measures the view of medical practitioners towards depression and its treatment. It contains questions on the appearance, causes and treatment of depression as seen by GPs´ and ways of interacting with depressed patients. In addition, there are some questions on the professional background of the GP. The DAQ has been promoted as a valid and reliable instrument to measure the attitudes of GP’s towards depression by Botega & Silveira (1996) and Kerr et al. (1995).
The “Suicide Intervention Response Inventory” (SIRI-2) by Neimeyer & Bonnelle (1997) is also a reliable and validated instrument that was specifically designed to assess the ability of professional caregivers in responding to suicidal patients. It contains 25 items representing a series of excerpts from counselling sessions. Each excerpt begins with an expression by the client concerning some aspect of the situation he/she faces, followed by two possible helper responses to the client´s remark. Each of the responses shall be rated concerning their appropriateness.
References
- Botega, N.J. (1992). Consultation-liaison psychiatry in Brazil: Psychiatric residency training. General-Hospital-Psychiatry 14(3), 186-191.
- Botega, N.R. & Silveira, G.M. (1996). General practitioners' attitudes towards depression: A study in primary care setting in Brazil. Int J Soc Psychiatry 42(3), 230-237.
- Kerr, M., Blizard, R., Mann, A. (1995). General practitioners and psychiatrists comparison of attitudes to depression using the depression attitude questionnaire. British Journal of General Practice 45(391), 89-92.
- Neimeyer, R.A. & Bonnelle, K. (1997). The suicide intervention response inventory: A revision and validation. Death Studies 21(1), 59-81.
- Salander Renberg, E. & Jacobsson, L. (2003). Development of a questionnaire on attitudes towards suicide (ATTS) and its application in a Swedish population. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior 33(1), 52-64.
- Ziervogel, A., Pfeiffer, T., Hegerl, U. (2005). How effective is advanced training concerning depression and suicidality among the elderly? Results of a pilot study.
Viimati uuendatud: 21.12.2011