Cited by 267Mental Health Treatment and AccessTreatment of Major DepressionAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Prevalence, Treatment, and Control of Depressive Symptoms in the United States: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), 2005-2008

Open access
Shim, R. S., Baltrus, P., Ye, J., Rust, G.·2011·The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine

Abstract

BACKGROUND: depression remains a major public health problem that is most often evaluated and treated in primary care settings. The objective of this study was to examine the prevalence, treatment, and control of depressive symptoms in a national data sample using a common primary care screening tool for depression. METHODS: we analyzed a sample of adults (n = 4836) from 2005 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to determine the overall prevalence, rates of treatment, and antidepressant control of mild, moderate, moderately severe, and severe depressive symptoms. RESULTS: of the sample, 20.1% reported significant depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) score, ≥ 5), the majority of whom had mild depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) score, 5-9). Even among individuals with severe depressive symptoms, a large percentage (36.9%) received no treatment from a mental health professional or with antidepressant medication. Of those taking antidepressants, 26.4% reported mild depressive symptoms and 18.8% had moderate, moderately severe, or severe depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: despite greater awareness and treatment of depression in primary care settings, the prevalence of depressive symptoms remains high, treatment levels remain low, and control of depressive symptoms are suboptimal. Primary care providers need to continue to focus their efforts on diagnosing and effectively treating this important disease.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3122/jabfm.2011.01.100121

Cites

27 of 27 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 28 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Shim, R. S., Baltrus, P., Ye, J., & Rust, G.
Affiliations
Morehouse School of Medicine (US)
Venue
The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine
Published
2011-01-01
Volume
24
Issue
1
Pages
33-38
ISSN
  • 1557-2625 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-7118
OpenAlex
W2046197761
Cited by
267
References
28
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 36 · 2017: 14 · 2016: 21 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 14
FWCI
24.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • Atlanta Clinical and Translational Science Institute
  • Morehouse School of Medicine
  • National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000454)
  • National Center for Research Resources (UL1RR025008)
  • National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
depressive symptoms, depression prevalence, antidepressant treatment, treatment gap, PHQ-9, primary care, depression screening, mental health service utilization
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Antidepressive Agents, Behavior Therapy, Cross-Sectional Studies, Depression, Female, Patient Care, Health Status Indicators, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Mass Screening, Middle Aged, Nutrition Surveys, Psychometrics, Quality of Health Care, Surveys and Questionnaires, Risk Factors, Severity of Illness Index, United States, Prevalence, Confidence Intervals, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review