A fascinating op-ed ran in the Boston Globe last week and I'll quote from it a bit and you'll get what's going on here. The gist is that Pfizer sponsored a survey of Cape Cod residents and found that 43 percent showed symptoms of depression, not depression as it's clinically understood which would've hit perhaps 7 percent to 10 percent of Cape residents. Pfizer makes Zoloft.
"This study was conducted only on the Cape, and it used a survey created by pharma giant Pfizer, which has a financial interest in the number of anti-depressant prescriptions being written. And in a break from usual medical protocol, it was handed out in waiting rooms to people who, for the most part, had come to the doctor for reasons having nothing to do with getting help for depression or its symptoms."That was the case last fall when I went to my doctor for a persistent chest bug. Without explanation, the receptionist handed me a survey that asked whether in the past two weeks I had "been bothered" by a list of symptoms, including "feeling down," "trouble falling asleep, or sleeping too much," "feeling tired," "poor appetite or overeating," and "feeling bad about yourself."
"Setting aside that my cough and fever had brought on most of these symptoms, I was startled by the aggressiveness of the inquiry, as well as the nonchalance of its administration. Unlike more typical medical forms that ask about diseases you've had in the past, this one seemed to be looking for a condition that hadn't yet been diagnosed, for which the patient was not necessarily seeking treatment. And, unlike an effort to prevent a contagious disease from threatening the public health, this one targeted an affliction of a highly personal nature, not known to spread through physical contact, or even propinquity.
"Now, all of a sudden, the nurse taking my blood pressure and weight was reviewing my completed survey and wondering if I should talk to the doctor about it, along with my nagging cough."
The upshot is that doctors thought this was a good way to start a "conversation" with patients about depression. Pfizer is perhaps the only party to the exchange who stood to benefit.
The only conversation docs ought to have is within their own profession about how they are trying to link depression with absolutely everything and about how they are becoming a wee bit too intrusive into every aspect of their patients' lives and about how they are getting to be the equivalent of bait-and-switch salespeople: "Came in to discuss a cold? Well have I got the SSRI for you?"
It's because of episodes such as this one that I openly lie on those little screening forms doctors give you these days each time I visit a doc.
