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Table 5 Assessing the patients and the situations

From: Understanding the prescription of antidepressants: a Qualitative study among French GPs

Coping with the patients

Quote 20

Postponing the prescription

"Patients ask for something to get better, but I don't hear this as a request for an antidepressant, but it's difficult not to write down any prescription. Sometimes, I struggle with using "minor drugs" saying "Don't worry, it's not an antidepressant." (FG 2, female GP; 40, mixed practice)

Quote 21

 

"We do not have so many answers, feeling helpless with psychotherapy, and after that, there is only the sick note, which is not really what they are asking for"(FG 4 female GP, 41, mixed practice)

Coping with official criteria

Quote 22

 

"When the patient has different signs, such as chronic pain, lower back pain, polymyalgia, it could be useful to deal with these issues using scales, to make the patient understand he is really in a bad situation."(Interview 3, male GP, 30, locum)

Quote23

 

"Scales are just great, scores are just great, but like you all just said: you don't use them. This kind of medicine is exactly the type we don't want to practice!"(FG 3, male GP, 59, urban practice)

Quote24

Usefulness of scales

When deciding what to do with a depressed patient, if I test him with a scale and there is just one point missing, I won't tell him: "Go back home, you're not depressed."(FG3, male GP, 50, urban practice)

Quote 25

 

"Some people come because they constantly feel bad, these symptoms have been with them for a long, long time. It's so complicated, there is not a real depressive episode but you can call this masked depression."(FG 4 male GP, 40, mixed practice)

Quote 26

 

"Those who work in health services, they always wait until the last minute"...or "they want a drug and a month later they say "Dr. I stopped"... "the main obstacle to treatment is the patient himself" ... "They don't want a sick note, they say they have to go to work."(FG 1, female GP, 49, rural practice)