Incremental improvement

It is also worth explaining that improvement in symptoms may be incremental and persevering with the medication to give it a chance to work is important. A gradual lifting of mood can be hard to pinpoint but patients should slowly begin to feel some improvement. If, after a few weeks, patients feel they are seeing no benefit, they can return to their GP and ask to try a different antidepressant.

Find out when the patient is next seeing a health professional – some GPs are very proactive in closely monitoring patients starting antidepressants. Others can be more hands-off and there is a danger that some individuals might slip through the net. 

Depending on the answer you can ask the patient to check in with you in person or by phone in a few days. This will help them feel that someone is looking out for them and they are not going through this experience alone. (Bear in mind that some people will not tell family members that they have sought help or are being prescribed medicine for a mental health disorder, fearing recriminations or shame.) Broadly following the typical New Medicine Service questions has a place here (see Table 2).