This book provides practical information about depression and anxiety in primary care, with a focus on the approach in different countries and incorporating global ranges/prevalence, risk factors and health burden including that associated with COVID-19 and its pandemic.

To ensure the challenges of a wide international primary care community are reflected fully, authors from different world regions – Africa, Asia Pacific, East Mediterranean, Europe, Ibero Americana-CIMF, North America and South Asia – have co-contributed to individual chapters on the detection and management of depression and anxiety in primary care in their own countries, including the screening tools used, how widely these tools are adopted and by whom, and current policies. As well as the medical model, it also presents the alternative viewpoint that feeling low or anxious is part of the human condition and the attention should be on supporting people in their journey through life, struggling to deal with the mainly social challenges they meet, rather than defining these problems as disorders or diseases requiring identification and treatment.