[Anxiety and depression levels in medical inpatients and their relation to the severity of illness].

Background And Objective: Anxiety and depression are common among medical inpatients. While their relation to the severity of illness is often discussed, the feeling of such severity by the patient and his/her prospects of improvement can be influenced by anxiety and depression.

Patients And Method: Patients admitted in an internal medicine ward. Sociodemographic characteristics, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), APACHE II, illness severity and reversibility self-evaluation were recorded. The HAD cut-off for anxiety or depression was 10.

Results: We included 260 admissions: 66.2% men, mean age 64.1 years. Anxiety was detected in 39.8% of women and 21.5% of men (p = 0.003); 31.8% of women and 16.3% of men had depression (p = 0.006). Anxious and depressive subjects did not score high in APACHE. Anxious patients had a worse knowledge of the medical diagnosis. Depressive patients were older, had a lower educational level and a greater physical impairment. Patients with a higher perception of severity displayed higher scores both on anxiety and depression scales. Patients with lower illness reversibility self-evaluation had more anxiety and depression, and more illness severity as well.

Conclusions: The prevalence of anxiety and depression in hospitalized medical patients is high, occurs mainly in women, and no relation to illness severity is observed. Anxiety and depression are associated with both illness perception of greater severity and less improvement.