Grant: Project Grant

Up to 44% of nursing homes residents are depressed or have a low mood. As a result of depression these people often have more trouble with their memory and their daily activities. Although depressive disorders are common and causes suffering, it is often under diagnosed and undertreated. How we treat depressive disorders in nursing homes represents an area to improve care for older adults. To address this problem, we plan to design a pathway for the treatment of depression which involves 3 steps. 1. To design a pathway using a modified 'Delphi Process', which explains how to diagnose and treat depressive disorders for older adults living in nursing homes. To do this we will use a Delphi Process, where a group of experts use scientific evidence and expert opinion to create recommendations. Once this is done we can combine these best practices for managing depressive disorders into a 'Clinical Pathway'. We will review the 'Clinical Pathway' with a group of health care providers, health administrators, researchers, patients and their families from across Canada and create a plan to use it in nursing homes across Canada. 2. To assess what prevents and enables us to diagnose and treat depressive disorders in long term care. To do this we will perform focus groups with the people involved in the processes and ask about their experiences. 3. We will then develop a detailed plan for how we will use this 'Clinical pathway' in practice, we will use known theories on how to change behaviour to help with this. We will work with one nursing home unit to get feedback and review this plan to ensure we incorporate real world experience. Using a clinical pathway for depressive disorders care in nursing homes provides a blueprint to help nurses and doctors to best care for those with depression, which will reduce the burden associated with depressive disorders.