Pharmacotherapy guidelines for treatment of depression

Abstract:

Depression is a widespread, heterogeneous disorder, being a real challenge for the treatment. Therefore, depression requires a serious approach, fast and safe diagnosis and the early start of treatment in order to prevent serious harm. Today there are a large number of therapeutic guidelines for the most effective drug treatment of depression. Most of the new guidelines are constantly striving to systematically include new evidences, as well as the level of evidences. Accordingly guidelines are constantly subject of revision consensus professional groups. In Croatia, for many years, there is no guideline at the national level, and this is one of the attempts to harmonize current psychiatric practice. The above treatment guidelines have been made to treat in clinical psychiatric practice and for general practitioners. The guidelines will cover the treatment of mild, medium and severe episodes of illness. 

Key words:
depression; drug therapy; guidelines