Follow up will be key when it comes to managing anxiety and depression in young people, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Identifying depression in young people is important, and now that a federal task force has recommended screening all youth 12 to 18 years of age, it should also be identified more readily. Yet Karen Swartz, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, has a few concerns.

Swartz: The challenge with antidepressants is they take weeks and weeks and weeks to work. So someone has to be really knowledgeable and have the time to meet regularly and to continue doing education. I know you’re not feeling better yet but stick with it. I wouldn’t expect you necessarily to be feeling better yet, we have to give it more time. My colleagues in primary care don’t have that time. Primary care’s doing to have to be a part of the answer but I think we’re going to have to think about how we work more collaboratively with our colleagues in primary care, pediatrics, ob-gyn to get better care in these primary care settings.  :33

Swartz encourages anyone with a positive screening test for depression to seek a mental health professional for confirmation and follow up. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.