About Breaking Through Barriers
By educating people with depression, caregivers, and physicians and improving patient-physician communication, Breaking Through Barriers aims to help ensure that people with depression are diagnosed and treated as effectively as possible, and to reduce the feeling of shame that many people with depression still have.
The program grew out of Depression: The Painful Truth Survey, an international survey conducted on behalf of the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) in early 2005 1. The survey revealed large gaps in patients’ and physicians’ knowledge about depression and showed how these gaps often lead to an incorrect diagnosis or a delayed diagnosis.1
Alarmed by those results, the WFMH brought together leading experts to discuss ways to improve the understanding and diagnosis of depression. Their ideas, summarized in a Call to Action, led in turn to the development of the Breaking Through Barriers program and this Web site.
To ensure that Breaking Through Barriers meets the highest standards, an editorial board that includes physicians and patient advocacy group representatives reviews all program materials.
Breaking Through Barriers is sponsored by the WFMH, Eli Lilly and Company and Boehringer Ingelheim, and supported by patient organizations and leading clinicians throughout Europe and Latin America.
- ‘Depression: The Painful Truth’ Survey. Conducted by Harris Interactive between February 21 and April 11, 2005. Available at: http://www.wfmh.org/PainfulTruthsurvey.htm