Frequency and Severity of Depression in Cancer Patients Presenting to Tertiary Care Hospital

Introdution: Cancer and depression, independently, cause massive human suffering worldwide. By the end of 2030 the unipolar major depression disorder could be as the chief source of ailment as estimated by World Health Organization.

Objective: Objective of this study is to detect prevalence the frequency and severity of the depression in cancer patients presenting to tertiary care hospital of Karachi.

Methodology: The current prospective cross-sectional research was performed over a period of six months from August 2020 to January 2021 on 179 patients in the Department of Oncology of Civil Hospital Karachi, after approval of synopsis from CPSP and the ethical committee of Civil Hospital. All patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria and visited OPD of Civil hospital were selected in the study. Informed consent was taken after explaining the procedure, risks and benefits of the study.Patients were assessed clinically by using ICD-10 criteria and then for validity and reliability, patients were screened for presence of depression and its severity through PHQ-9.Patients scoring higher than 4 was labeled as having depression and PHQ-9 score of 5 to 9, 10 to 14, 15 to 19, 20-27 were labeled mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe depression correspondingly. Observed data was entered in the predesigned Performa was gathered and SPSS version 20.0 was used for data analysis. Mean ± SD of age was 47.75±14.901years. Out of 179 patients 95 (53.1%) were male and 84 (46.9%) were female. 93(52%) cancer patients were depressed while 86(48%) were normal. Patients suffering from mild depression were 3.2%, moderate depression were 54.85%, moderately severe depressed were 19.4%, while 22.6% cancer patients were severely depressed. It is to be concluded that out of 179cancer patients 93(52%) diagnosed to have depression while 86(48%) did not have depression. Based on our study findings, it is suggested that depression commonly presented in cancer patients and there is a need to screen all cancer patients for depressive disorder.