Carol Vidal

So we zoomed in all of the nine items of the PHQ-9, which include the ones that I mentioned and others like loss of energy.

And we looked at it because we were interested in seeing if there were differences in item changes.

So we thought maybe it's just that some of the items are increasing more than others.

And the reason for doing that is that I was inspired by a patient I had a few years ago.

She was another lesson that I was seeing in treatment.

And she had a therapist, and the therapist would administer every time that she would meet with the patient, every two or week or once a month, the PHQ-9.

And I would see her for medication management and when we would see her, over time, she looked like she was looking better and she didn't look depressed anymore.

She wasn't endorsing low mood.

She was doing well, she was functioning well, but she sort of like got to a point where she was still testing positive for, according to the PHQ-9 for depression.

But she didn't look like she was depressed.

So I thought maybe there's an issue at the population level where you're seeing people have higher rates of certain items of the depression scale and why we're seeing this emphasis in depression overall.

So that's why we look at item level changes.

Yeah, so the thing with the suicidal item is that it's increased, but it's also, you know, it has lower prevalence because it's a rare item to endorse.

So the increases, even though there's a percentage increase, it doesn't mean that, you know, a bunch of, like a lot more people are endorsing that symptom, but there is a big increase and there is an increase, and we know there's an increase in suicidal behaviors over time.

It's hard to know exactly what the reasons are because mental health is complex.

And there's like so many different causes.

But we tried to look at some of the stressors that would be contributing to that.

And what's interesting about that item is that it increased more than the core symptoms of depression.

So like more than even low mood or anhedonia, which are what we would require for someone to be diagnosed with depression.

Yes, for sure.