Abstract
Background: Anxiety and depression are important psychological co-morbidities in COPD patients. The presence of anxiety and/or depression in COPD patients is associated with increased mortality, exacerbation rates, length of hospital stay, decreased quality-of-life and functional status. Various psychometric scales have been developed for screening depression and anxiety.
Aim: We investigated the co-relation between two self-reported inventories to evaluate depression and anxiety in COPD-related hospital admissions at a tertiary hospital.
Methods: Patients admitted with a COPD exacerbation over a 9 month period were assessed for depression and anxiety using two validated questionnaires; the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and Becks Depression/ Anxiety Inventory (BDI/ BAI). The questionnaires were administered within 48 hours of admission into hospital and patients' responses to both the questionnaires were compared. Correlations were drawn from the scores obtained for this survey.
Results: Complete data sets for both questionnaires were available for 38 patients admitted with an acute exacerbation of COPD. The prevalence of depression in the HADS score was 47.4% and for BDI was 68.4% while that of anxiety in the HADS was 39.5% and for BAI 57.9%. There was good correlation between both scoring systems with an r value of 0.77 (p<0.001) for anxiety and 0.70 (p<0.001) for depression, respectively.
Conclusions: Both scoring systems have a good correlation. However Beck's score estimates of depression and anxiety were higher compared to HADS scores. This is due to the weight given of physical symptoms which are key elements for patients admitted with COPD.
- Copyright ©ERS 2015
