A patient is diagnosed with major depression with severe symptoms and begins taking an antidepressant medication. Three weeks after beginning therapy, the patient tells the nurse that the drug is not working. The nurse will counsel this patient to ask the provider about:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Patients with severe depression benefit more from a combination of drug therapy and psychotherapy than from either component alone, so this patient should ask the provider about nondrug therapies. Once a drug has been selected for treatment, it must be used for 4 to 8 weeks before its efficacy can be assessed. Until a drug has been used at least 1 month without success, it should not be considered a failure. Adding a second medication, changing to a different medication, and increasing the dose of this medication should all be reserved until the current drug is deemed to have failed after at least 4 weeks.

A Patient Is Diagnosed with Major Depression with Severe Symptoms