Drug Treatment of Depressed Patients Referred for Hospitalization
JOEL KOTIN M.D.1,
ROBERT M. POST M.D., , and
FREDERICK K. GOODWIN M.D.
1 Assistant Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, University of California at Irvine
The authors' clinical impression that many depressed patients are admitted to hospitals without having received adequate drug treatment as outpatients was confirmed with a sample of 51 depressed patients. Of these, only 20 percent had received proper drug treatment before referral. The authors propose a larger study of the actual patterns of drug prescription to seek the causes of inadequate treatment.
