Practice guidelines and late-life depression assessment in long-term care

To determine how well nursing home physicians believe they can detect and treat depression, we conducted a national survey, eliciting a 63% response rate, More than 75% of respondents believed they detected and treated depression well. Excellent depression training (vs "good," "fair," "poor/none") was associated with better self-reported recognition (odds ratio [OR] 14.25; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.81, 111.93) and treatment skills (OR 6.72; 95% CI 1.91, 23.64). Screening tool use predicted greater self-assessed detection (OR 1.89; 95% CI 0.92, 3.87) and treatment competency (OR 2.00; 95% CI 1.14, 3.50), Practice guideline awareness was associated with greater self-reported treatment competency (OR 2.47; 95% CI 1.56, 3.91).