ArticleAnnals of family medicine
Health care assistants in primary care depression management: role perception, burdening factors, and disease conception.
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, 1 of them a synthesis 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, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Collaborative care for depression and anxiety problems.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2012Pooled it
- Spirituality, Self-Care, and Social Activity in the Primary Medical Care of Elderly Patients.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2022Trial
- Primary care management for patients receiving long-term antithrombotic treatment: A cluster-randomized controlled trial.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Sharing Responsibilities within the General Practice Team - A Cross-Sectional Study of Task Delegation in Germany.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Trial
- Mapping policies, regulations, and practice supports for medical office assistants in primary care: a scoping review.BMC primary care · 2026Article
- Exploring Physician and Patient Perspectives on Expectations and Role Models Towards Chronic Pain Treatment in General Practice: A Qualitative Cross-Sectional Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Psychosocial working conditions and mental health among medical assistants in Germany: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2024Article
- "It's Tricky": Care Managers' Perspectives on Interacting with Primary Care Clinicians.Population health management · 2021Article
- Shared Decision Making Enhances Pneumococcal Vaccination Rates in Adult Patients in Outpatient Care.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Review
- Patient-perceived barriers and facilitators to the implementation of a medication review in primary care: a qualitative thematic analysis.BMC family practice · 2018Article
- How psychosocial factors affect well-being of practice assistants at work in general medical care?--a questionnaire survey.BMC family practice · 2015Observational
- Tablet-based screening of depressive symptoms in quito, ecuador: efficiency in primary care.International journal of family medicine · 2014Article
- Structured pro-active care for chronic depression by practice nurses in primary care: a qualitative evaluation.PloS one · 2013Article
- Effect of the delegation of GP-home visits on the development of the number of patients in an ambulatory healthcare centre in Germany.BMC health services research · 2012Article
- Development of a primary care-based complex care management intervention for chronically ill patients at high risk for hospitalization: a study protocol.Implementation science : IS · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeIn primary care, the involvement of health care assistants (HCAs) in clinical depression management is an innovative approach. Little is known, however, about how HCAs experience their new tasks. We wanted to describe the perceptions and experiences of HCAs who provided case management to patients with depression in small primary care practices.
methodsThis qualitative study was nested in the Primary Care Monitoring for Depressive Patients Trial on case management in Germany. We used a semi-structured instrument to interview 26 HCAs and undertook content analysis. We focussed on 3 key aspects: role perception, burdening factors, and disease conception.
resultsMost HCAs said their new role provided them with personal and professional enrichment, and they were interested in improving patient-communication skills. They saw their major function as interacting with the patient and considered support for the family physician to be of less importance. Even so, some saw their role as a communication facilitator between family physician and patient. Burdening factors implementing the new tasks were the increased workload, the work environment, and difficulties interacting with depressed patients. HCAs' disease conception of depression was heterogeneous. After 1 year HCAs believed they were sufficiently familiar with their duties as case managers in depression management.
conclusionHCAs were willing to extend their professional responsibilities from administrative work to more patient-centred work. Even if HCAs perform only monitoring tasks within the case management concept, the resulting workload is a limiting factor.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.