Up to 15% of the population may be affected by common mental health disorders at any one time and these can be associated with considerable long-term disability. The common mental health disorders covered here are depression, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The guideline is aimed at primary care practitioners, managers and commissioners.

The vast majority of depressive and anxiety disorders that are diagnosed are treated in primary care, but recognition of anxiety disorders, in particular, is poor. The focus of this guideline is to improve access to services and recognition of common mental health disorders in adults, and provide advice on the principles that need to be adopted to develop appropriate referral and local care pathways.

Although separate full NICEguidelines already exist for the management of most of these disorders, the importance and uniqueness of this book is in bringing together treatment and referral advice from the existing guidelines and combining it with new recommendations on access, identification, and developing care pathways. A new development method was formulated specifically for this guideline and this is explained.

All the evidence on which the recommendations were based, including the characteristics of studies, are on an accompanying CD-ROM.

NICE Mental Health Guidelines

These guidelines from NICE set out clear recommendations, based on the best available evidence, for health care professionals on how to work with and implement physical, psychological and service-level interventions for people with various mental health conditions.