Collaborative Care for Depressed Elderly in Korea

Late-life depression is associated with physical limitations, greater functional impairment, increased utilization and cost of health care, and suicide. Collaborative care, linking primary and mental health specialty care, has been shown to be effective for the treatment of late-life depression in primary care settings in Western countries. The primary aim of this project is to implement a depression care management intervention, and examine its effectiveness on the depressive symptoms of older patients in Korean primary care settings. Based on chronic disease management theory and previous Collaborative care management studies in western countries, we propose to test a Depression Care Management intervention,which includes care manager to support a primary care physician of depression in their old patients. Care manager'd role are monitoring the progress of treatment, supporting patient's adherence, educating patients/ family and facilitate communication between providers. Also psychiatrists provide consultation and supervision of care managers. Using a randomized controlled design, we will examine whether the Depression care management is an effective treatment for patients with late life depression in rural Korea. The primary outcome would be the improvement of depressive symptoms of patients in primary care setting.