Drug interactions between antineoplastic and antidepressant agents: analysis of patients seen at an oncology clinic at a general hospital.

Objectives: To determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms among oncology patients and identify simultaneous use of antineoplastic and antidepressant agents.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study that interviewed 56 oncology patients using two data collection instruments: a questionnaire covering clinical and sociodemographic data and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), for assessment of depressive symptoms. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were used to determine the prevalence of depressive symptoms and the chi-square test was used to evaluate associations between sociodemographic and clinical variables and depressive symptoms.