Common Mental Health Disorders: The NICE Guideline on Identification and Pathways to Care
National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH)
Up to 15% of the population may be
affected by common mental health disorders at any one time and
these can be associated with considerable long-term disability. The
common mental health disorders covered here are depression,
generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive
disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The guideline is aimed
at primary care practitioners, managers and commissioners.
The vast majority of depressive and anxiety disorders that are
diagnosed are treated in primary care, but recognition of anxiety
disorders, in particular, is poor. The focus of this guideline is
to improve access to services and recognition of common mental
health disorders in adults, and provide advice on the principles
that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local
care pathways.
Although separate full NICE guidelines already exist for the
management of most of these disorders, the importance and
uniqueness of this book is in bringing together treatment and
referral advice from the existing guidelines and combining it with
new recommendations on access, identification, and developing care
pathways. A new development method was formulated specifically for
this guideline and this is explained.
All the evidence on which the recommendations were based, including
the characteristics of studies, are on an accompanying free
CD-ROM.
- Now the only place to obtain this NICE guidance in
print.
Readership: Primary care practitioners,
managers and commissioners are the main audience, although other
mental health professionals will also find it useful.
List of the other NICE mental health
guidelines
NICE Mental Health Guidelines
These guidelines from NICE set out clear
recommendations, based on the best available evidence, for health
care professionals on how to work with and implement physical,
psychological and service-level interventions for people with
various mental health conditions.
Contents
- Preface
- Common mental health disorders
- Method used to develop this guideline
- Access to healthcare
- Case identification and formal
assessment
- Further assessment of risk and need for
treatment, and routine outcome monitoring
- Systems for organising and developing local
care pathways
- Summary of recommendations
- Appendices
- References
- Glossary
- Abbreviations