CMAJ Podcasts
CMAJ Podcasts
Canadian Medical Association Journal
Depression guideline: why universal screening isn’t recommended
27 minutes Posted Oct 20, 2025 at 10:00 am.
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Rates of depression in Canada are rising, but a new CMAJ guideline advises against universal screening in primary care. The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care found no evidence that routinely administering depression questionnaires to all adults improves outcomes and raised concerns about false positives, overdiagnosis, and strain on limited mental health resources. Dr. Eddy Lang, lead author of the guideline and professor of emergency medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine, Un...