Does a higher frequency of difficult patient encounters lead to lower quality care?
Physician perception of frequent difficult encounters was not associated with worse patient care quality or more medical errors. Future studies should investigate whether other patient outcomes, including acute care and patient satisfaction, are affected by difficult encounters.
Our results suggest that patients with dysthymia or minor depression are more likely to respond to antidepressant medication if they do not see their depression as a biological illness and see themselves as generally healthy. It is clearly not necessary for patients to believe that their dysthymia or minor depression is biological to respond to antidepressant medication.