Cross-Sectional Study of Prevalence and Severity of Anxiety, Depression and Body Image Disturbance in Amputees in a Tertiary Care Hospital

INTRODUCTION: Amputation is a traumatic or surgical process of the removal of all or part of the limb or extremity such as arm, leg, foot, hand, toe or finger. A person who undergoes amputation goes through a loss which is threefold in term of function, sensation and body image. There can be different types of impact psychologically such as depression, anxiety or in terms of body image disturbance. There are only sparse south Indian studies in this context. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To assess: 1. The prevalence and severity of depression among amputees. 2. The prevalence and severity of anxiety among amputees. 3. Prevalence and severity of body image disturbance. RESEARCH METHODS: This is a Cross-sectional, descriptive study of 100 post-operative amputation patients conducted at Dept of orthopedics, surgery and vascular surgery of Govt Stanley medical college, Chennai. Convenient sampling method was used. Study was done over 6 months period from September 2017- February 2018.The tools used for evaluation were: The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), HAMILTON RATING SCALE FOR ANXIETY(HAM-A), HAMILTON RATING SCALE FOR DEPRESSION (HAM-D) and MBSRQ-Appearance Scales (MBSRQ-AS) RESULTS: In this study we found that, majority (85%) of the amputees were males. Most of them belonged to 30-39 years age group from urban areas (81%) with most of them having high school level of education. Majority of them were working as unskilled workers. GHQ-28 mean score was 9.81 with 11 patients scoring less than the cut off score. HAM-D mean score was 9.85 (S.D. 5.85), HAM-A mean score was 12.14(S.D. 5.19). In Multidimensional Body self-relations questionnaire, Appearance orientation subscale mean score was 2.39 (S.D. 0.39), in appearance orientation mean score was 2.73 (S.D. 0.46) and in Body areas satisfaction mean score was 2.65 (S.D. 0.29). 48% had depression and 51% had anxiety. LIMITATIONS: It is a cross-sectional study done in an in-patient setting so results aren’t generalizable to the general population