Stephen

Stephen thinks he had been depressed for quite a while but hadn’t admitted anything was wrong until a work colleague suggested that he might consider seeing the GP as he had been taking a lot of time off work over the past few months. Once he was diagnosed with depression Stephen found it easier to accept and was reassured that antidepressants could help him to feel more himself. He has taken them for four years now, and feels that they work well to keep his mood stable.

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Stephen is fully involved in decisions about his treatment

Age at interview 48

Gender Male

Age at diagnosis 44

And have you always felt that you’ve been involved in the decisions about your treatment?

Yes because it’s usually me that does most of the talking.

Okay.

They come up with the prescription or the solution whatever but it’s me that’s telling them what the problem is and what I think I need etc. and then as I said we might discuss about going on to a higher dose so it’s often down to me. She might say Oh I think you should double it,’ and I’ll be saying Maybe not…but if that’s what you thinks’ best I’ll do what you thinks’ best. Or I might say to her as happened in the last one, I’m feeling a lot worse than I had done because of the extra pressure, could we discuss increasing the dose?’ and then shell say yes’, so. I do think I’m very involved in it.

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