Depression Symptoms Study by Tsai - Essay Example

'Depression Symptoms Study by Tsai' is an outstanding example of a paper on depression.

Summary and Response

This study by Tsai et al. (2013) was conducted to find out if depression symptom severity could be reduced and HIV outcomes could be improved with directly observed fluoxetine treatment of marginally housed and homeless adults infected with HIV. This research carried out from 2002 to 2008 led to the results that intervention not only decreased the severity of depression symptoms but also improved the response and remission. The researchers did not find any differences that were statistically significant in secondary HIV outcomes. Based on these results, the conclusion that can be drawn is that directly observed fluoxetine has the potential of being an effective treatment strategy of depression for the marginally housed and homeless adult people infected with HIV. HIV-positive adults that are marginally housed and homeless and particularly vulnerable to risks and have a range of barriers in their way of adherence.

One limitation of this research was that there was no placebo control group. Even though placebos are commonly used in psychopharmacological research, research suggests that the effect of depression on the outcomes of HIV is adverse and medication can be used to treat it. For this reason, the researchers considered providing a placebo for nine months as unethical. The participants belonging to the intervention arm were constantly in contact with the staff. This effect was mitigated by significant contact of the participants belonging to the referral arm with the study staff. It took the researchers more than five years in the recruitment phase because the screening sample required for the identification of the eligible participants was large. Despite the low rate of refusal, the researchers’ ability to draw general conclusions based on their research for all marginally housed and homeless adults infected with HIV and suffering from depression might have been compromised because of the ineligibility of the large proportion of the potential research participants. The researchers could not draw a formal comparison between the characteristics of study participants and the potential participants’ characteristics that had been screened for eligibility but had refused to participate in the research. A certain percentage of the potential participants that exhibited the depression symptoms that had undergone the structured diagnostic assessment might fulfill the bipolar disorder’s diagnostic criteria.

In my opinion, this was very detailed and comprehensive research. The subject of research was very useful as research on homeless and marginally housed depressed people and also infected with HIV is very limited. In this sense, this research makes a very useful contribution to the existing body of knowledge. Despite the limitations of the study identified before, the researchers took measures to minimize the effects of those limitations. The results of this research emphasize the significance of careful assessment of the people that display symptoms of depression. This is a very good approach because it tends to avoid the exposure of patients whose bipolarity has not yet been recognized to the antidepressant medications that if they take, may destabilize them or just prove ineffective.