ArticleAnnals of family medicine
Effect of improved primary care access on quality of depression care.
Article in Annals of family medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Association of Advanced Access With Primary Care Performance: A Systematic Review.Annals of family medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Non-emergency department interventions to reduce ED utilization: a systematic review.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2013Pooled it
- Advanced access scheduling outcomes: a systematic review.Archives of internal medicine · 2011Pooled it
- Use of a self-rating scale to monitor depression severity in recurrent GP consultations in primary care - does it really make a difference? A randomised controlled study.BMC family practice · 2017Trial
- Advanced Access in Primary Healthcare and Its Effects on Emergency Department Utilization: A Rapid Review.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Access to primary care for socio-economically disadvantaged older people in rural areas: exploring realist theory using structural equation modelling in a linked dataset.BMC medical research methodology · 2018Article
- Access to primary care for socioeconomically disadvantaged older people in rural areas: a realist review.BMJ open · 2016Review
- Conformity of pediatric/adolescent HIV clinics to the patient-centered medical home care model.AIDS patient care and STDs · 2013Article
- Patients' perceptions on losing access to FPs: qualitative study.Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien · 2013Article
- The impact of primary care: a focused review.Scientifica · 2012Review
- Effect of usual source of care on depression among Medicare beneficiaries: an application of a simultaneous-equations model.Health services research · 2011Article
- Medical homes: challenges in translating theory into practice.Medical care · 2009Review
- Implementing open-access scheduling of visits in primary care practices: a cautionary tale.Annals of internal medicine · 2008Article
- Outcomes of a quality improvement project integrating mental health into primary care.Quality & safety in health care · 2007Article
- Impact of Advanced Access on access, workload, and continuity: controlled before-and-after and simulated-patient study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2007Article
- Does diabetes double the risk of depression?Annals of family medicineArticle
- Improving medical practice: a conceptual framework.Annals of family medicineReview
- The inverse care law: clinical primary care encounters in deprived and affluent areas of Scotland.Annals of family medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeWe wanted to determine whether a major improvement in access to primary care during 2000 was associated with changes in the quality of care for patients with depression.
methodsHealth plan administrative data were analyzed by multilevel regression to compare the quality of care received by patients with depression between 1999 and 2001, a time without major changes in depression care guidelines. Approximately 6,000 patients with depression who received all care in a large multispecialty medical group during any single year were subjects for this study. Thirteen different quality measures assessed process quality under the dimensions of effectiveness, timeliness, safety, and patient-centeredness.
resultsThe largest change was a reduction in the proportion of depressed patients with no follow-up visit in primary care after starting a new antidepressant medication: from 33.0% before a change in access to care to 15.4% afterward, P =.001. During the same period, continuity of care in primary care improved (>50% of primary care visits to 1 doctor increased from 67.3% to 74.0%, P = or <.001), as did persistence of 6-month antidepressant medication (from 46.2% to 50.8%, P = or <.001). Further analyses found that the latter change was primarily associated with the change in continuity of care. Measures of subspecialty mental health care worsened during this time.
conclusionMarked improvement in access to primary care for 1 year was associated with some improvement in primary care for patients with depression, but the mechanism appeared to be improved continuity. Those planning to implement advanced access to care need to do so in such a way that continuity of care is enhanced rather than harmed by the change.
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