How this fits in

Follow-up monitoring of people with depression, using patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), is recommended but evidence of benefit in primary care is lacking. Monitoring patients’ progress with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) produced no benefit in terms of depressive symptoms at 12 weeks follow-up, but at 26 weeks a significant difference in depression could not be ruled out, and patients’ quality of life was significantly improved (P = 0.01). Only 40.9% of patients in the intervention arm had a follow-up PHQ-9 recorded in the GP records. Further research should test PROMS that measure anxiety as well as depression, which are automatically delivered and integrated into patients’ records, and produce specific treatment recommendations.