In the United States, patients with clinical depression are somtimes hospitalized for sucidal ideation or attempted suicide. It is common practice to prevent patients from discharging themselves from the behavioral health center (or other facility). The outer doors are kept locked. Only.staff with a key may enter or leave. Any patients who attempt to walk out out of the building ar physically restrained by nurses and behavioral health technicians. Legal short-term certifications are issued.
In these facilities, it is standard practice to ask patients each day on a scale of 1 to 10 how depressed they are feeling. If the score improves for several days, then the patient is more likely to be discharged than if the patient continues to self-report suicidal thoughts or feelings of depression. Additionally, patients have the legal right to refuse medication, but refusal of medication is generally considered to be an indicator that the patient is not yet ready to be discharged.
Clearly, these self-reported depression scores can be aggregated. Using statistical tools, we can determine whether self-reported abatment of symptoms is significant enough to reject the idea that the medications are ineffective.
To what degree to self-reported depression scores in inpatient facilities play role in measuring the efficacy of different pharmaceuticals?
