Patient attitudes toward and goals for MDD treatment: a survey study

Background/Objectives: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a highly prevalent disorder, frequently diagnosed and treated in a primary care setting; however, little information is available about the treatment decision-making process between MDD patients and their providers. A shared decision-making and goal attainment approach to establishing and tracking progress toward treatment goals that are meaningful to individual patients is explored in this survey study. In addition, information about patient perspectives on setting treatment goals, medication selection/switching, and engaging patients with their health care professionals was also collected and evaluated. Methods: A 50-question online survey was administered to members of the PatientsLikeMe community who indicated an MDD diagnosis and a switch in antidepressant medications within the past 2 years. Follow-up interviews were also conducted with a small subset of these participants. Results: Of the 200 participants who completed the survey, 42% reported currently having goals for MDD treatment. These goals were typically in the areas of physical health (62.7%), cognitive functioning (60.2%), and social aspects of life (57.8%). A majority of survey participants (61%) believed the goal attainment approach would be helpful to set and evaluate treatment goals. Conclusions: The data provide important insights into patient perspectives on the development of formal treatment plans and goals for MDD. In addition, the data also support the use of a patient-centric approach to shared decision-making by using a goal attainment scale to establish and track progress toward treatment goals that are meaningful to MDD patients in real-world clinical practice. The results of this study can be used to inform best practices in patient-clinician communication when developing an MDD treatment plan and goals.