Word on Health was interested to hear about a simple, free online diagnostic tool that helps patients and primary care doctors screen for four common psychiatric illnesses: depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Developed by M-3 Information and validated by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the 27-item questionnaire can detect a mood disorder with approximately 80% accuracy.
This is good news for the 1 in 10 Americans who suffer from depression and other mental-health disorders but never receive treatment because they don’t understand what’s wrong.
Bradley Gaynes, M.D., M.P.H, lead author of the study and an associate professor of psychiatry in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine said “For millions of people, a single tool that can screen for multiple disorders would be very helpful.”
M-3 has also developed a mobile phone version of the checklist that will be released shortly. In the meantime, Word on Health readers can take their mental health pulse at http://www.mymoodmonitor.com/
SRxA's Word on Health 