[Psychological distress of breast cancer patients: screening and patients' request for psycho-oncological care as indicators of health-related quality of life].

Health-related quality of life (QoL) in breast cancer patients strongly depends on emotional well-being. QoL (EORTC-QLQ-C30), psychological distress (HADS), and patient's request for psycho-oncological care were assessed in 103 breast cancer patients during initial hospitalization. Clinical diagnoses according to ICD-10-F were made by clinical interview. As expected, both positive HADS screens (>13) and clinical diagnoses of mental disorders were inversely related to QoL. However, in multivariate analysis of variance only positive HADS scores but not clinical diagnoses of mental disorders significantly predicted QoL. The performance of psychological screening instruments should therefore not only be judged by their ability to detect clinical diagnoses but also by their relevance for reflecting patients' QoL.