title: Antidepressant prescribing practices of nurse practitioners.
abstract: Depression continues to be seriously underdiagnosed and undertreated in primary care settings. Many studies have observed antidepressant prescribing practices of nonpsychiatric physicians to discover why inadequate depression detection and treatment is pervasive. This article describes the first large, randomized study to investigate the antidepressant prescribing practices of NPs. This quantitative, descriptive study sought to determine the factors NPs consider when choosing an antidepressant, antidepressant prescribing frequency by NPs, types of antidepressants prescribed by NPs, and health problems that NPs are treating with antidepressants. The study's findings indicate that NPs should adhere more closely to established practice guidelines.
authors.affiliation: Adult Nursing Department, College of Nursing, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tenn., USA.
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Shell
mesh_terms: D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000145:classification / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003657:Decision Making; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000451:nursing; D009722:Nurse Practitioners / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013714:Tennessee
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents