Pharmacotherapeutics for Depression

Pharmacotherapeutics for Depression

Margo is a 49-year-old divorced woman who works as a bank teller. She tells her primary care provider (PCP) that she feels tired all the time and she is gaining weight because she has no interest in her usual exercise activities and has been overeating, not from appetite but out of boredom. She notices that she has difficulty falling asleep at night and awakens around 4 a.m. most mornings, without her alarm, and cannot go back to sleep even though she still feels tired. She finds little joy in her life but cannot pinpoint any particular concern. The PCP asks Angela to fill out a Beck’s Depression Scale, which indicated she has moderate depression.

Your first line of treatment leads you to prescribe citalopram for Margo that she is to take daily and return for follow-up in 6 weeks.

• Write that prescription. (Be sure to indicate drug name, strength, amount per dose, route, frequency of dose, amount to dispense, allow generics, and number of refills.)

• Provide Margo with written education regarding her prescription. (Include what she should expect when first taking the drug, appropriate activity warnings, when to expect improvement, side effects she may experience, and anything she should report to the provider). Write this is a narrative form as though you were talking to the patient.

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