A new research states that depression cases that are left untreated do not get better with time.

Columbia University Medical Center, New York, researchers found that 62 per cent people who had mild depression and had not received any mental health treatment in the past year fulfilled the criterion for large-scale depression after a 4-year follow-up.

Study authors, led by Myrna M. Weissman, PhD, stated, "Our findings indicate that simple screening procedures, especially for major depression, can identify primary care patients with milder symptoms that are nevertheless persistent and enduring mental health problems."

For reaching to a conclusion researchers followed patients who were found with common psychiatric disorders for long.

About 348 low-income, adult, primary care patients who were screened for major depression were included in a study. They were reassessed after 3.7 years. No one out of them had received psychiatric care before the initial screening they had faced.

The results showed that 62 per cent out of 39 people who had mild depression had major depressive disorder at follow-up.

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