Hospital anxiety and depression among cancer patients undergoing various cancer treatment in selected tertiary Hospital, Mangaluru

Background: Anxiety and depression are widespread in cancer patients. Cancer is the most common diagnosis all over the world. Lack in patient’s coping mechanism may lead to anxiety and depression. Patients suffering from untreated depression or anxiety, may be less likely to take their cancer treatment medicine and maintain good health practices. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the diagnosis can be used to predict anxiety and depression.

Materials and Methods: In this study the population is all the cancer patients aged 18 and above undergoing various cancer treatment in selected hospital, Mangaluru. A quantitative descriptive approach is used to assess hospital anxiety and depression among cancer patients undergoing various cancer treatments who met the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling technique. The tool used was standardized Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that there is significant association between depression and baseline variables. There is an association between depression and selected baseline variables like age, sex with (P = <0.05) level of significance. Kindly remove this (which is irrelevant )

Result: Out of 150 cancer patients, 58.7% of the participants were abnormal, 34.0% were borderline and 7.3% were normal in relation to anxiety. And in relation to depression in which majority i.e., 36.7% of the participants were normal, 32.7% had borderline and 30.7% were abnormal. There is no correlation between anxiety and depression score (p=0.129) which is not significant. The data analysed denotes that the obtained ‘p’ value is lesser than 0.05 level of significance. Thus, the research hypothesis is accepted. Hence there is significant association of anxiety with the baseline variables. 

Conclusion: This study concludes that majority of the cancer patients undergoing various treatments had anxiety and depression.