Frequency of Anxiety and Depression in Adult Cancer Patients: A cross-sectional study

Objectives: To assess the frequency of depression and anxiety in adult cancer patients and find it's correlation with demographic factors and disease characteristics. Study design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of Study: From January 2017 to June 2017 at CMH Lahore, Jinnah Hospital Lahore & Nishtar Hospital Multan. Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in outpatient departments of CMH Lahore, Jinnah Hospital, Lahore and Nishtar Hospital, Multan. Aga Khan University Anxiety and Depression Scale (AKUADS) was used to assess the presence of depression and anxiety in study participants. The sample consisted of 197 diagnosed cancer patients. Results: The mean age of cancer patients was 41.61 years (SD= 17.9). Overall, 49.7% of the cancer patients were found to have depression and anxiety using a cutoff score of 20 on AKUADS. Positive and significant correlation was found between age and anxiety and depression (r=0.25, p=0.001) and a statistically significant association was found between type of treatment and depression (p=0.030). Similarly, strong positive correlation was found between psychological disorder and depression (r=0.932, p=0.00) and that with somatic disorder (r=0.88, p=0.001) There was no statistically significant association found between gender, religion, education, income, illness duration and presence of anxiety and depression. Conclusion: This study emphasizes on the high frequency of depression and anxiety in cancer patients. Older age, treatment with chemotherapy along with surgery and an advanced stage of cancer were associated with a greater chance of falling under the category of psychological morbidity. The findings are a validation for the necessity of investigating patients for symptoms of depression and anxiety for following the cancer care protocol. Therefore, appropriate psychiatric intervention should be maintained parallel to other treatment modalities