DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2018.v06i11.071

Pages: 4557-4561

Depression is highly prevalent yet underdetected in patients receiving palliative care worldwide. Several factors may exist which affect care providers in clinical settings on detection and screening of depression in palliative care patients. Palliative care providers are the front-line health care professionals and are well-positioned to detect and screen depression. The existence of un-detected depression in this population of patients constitutes an area of research. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge of palliative care providers regarding detection and screening of depression in the Northern Region of Malawi. A cross-sectional quantitative study enrolling 53 palliative care providers using census approach was done and data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and was analysed using SPSS. 43.4 % of palliative care providers had limited knowledge on detection of depression. 56.6% of palliative care providers did not routinely screen patients receiving palliative care for depression. Workload, Lack of in-service training and absence of screening tools were highly implicated for inconsistency in detection and screening of depression. The current palliative care policy and training package for palliative care providers needs to be reviewed to improve knowledge in detection of depression.