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 NICEguidelines 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 CD-ROM.





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.