Assessment of spectrum of mental disorders in cancer patients.

Context: Cancer is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. The psychological factors that significantly affect the functioning of the cancer patients are anxiety, depressive disorders, and somatization.

Aims: To find out the spectrum of psychological disorders in cancer patients, also to find the association between sociodemographic variables and stage of tumor, treatment modality with the various psychological problems among cancer patients.

Settings And Design: This cross-sectional study was carried out among cancer patients undergoing treatment in our institution.

Subjects And Methods: Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-somatization, anxiety, depression screeners is a prevalidated standard questionnaire which is a combination of PHQ-9, generalized anxiety disorder 7, and PHQ-15 plus panic measures from original PHQ. This questionnaire was given to patients and assessed later.

Statistical Analysis: The association between variables of interest is tested using Chi-square test. P < 0.05 is be considered statistically significant. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 16 (SPSS for Windows, Version 16.0. Chicago, SPSS Inc.).

Results: Patients suffered from depression and also from other psychiatric morbidities. There was significant association among residential addresses and various scale (P < 0.05), PHQ-9 was maximum among radiotherapy patients (P = 0.04). PHQ-15 had association with stage of cancer (P = 0.007).

Conclusion: Psychological problems are highest among patients from rural areas and among female patients compared to male. Highest anxiety and somatization was found among patients in Stage II cancer and depression in Stage IV cancer. Among treatment modalities, highest anxiety was found among patients under chemotherapy treatment, somatization among patients under both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and depression among patients under radiotherapy treatment.