COMPARISON OF CURRENT SCREENING FOR PREVALENCE OF DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY WITH STANDARDIZED SCREENING TOOLS I PATIENT HEALTH QUALITY -9 AND GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDERS-7 AMONG ADULT INPATIENTS AT SHAUKAT KHANUM MEMORIAL CANCER HOSPITAL & RESEARCH CENTRE (SKMCH&RC)
Abstract
Purpose: Screening for depression and anxiety for inpatients at Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre is done by nursing team by asking patients two questions from a structured admission tool aimed toward depression and anxiety. We audited the use of the current method of screening for depression and anxiety against standard screening tools for depression and anxiety i.e., Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ)-9 and Generalised Anxiety
Disorder (GAD)-7. The aim was improvement of screening for depression and anxiety amongst cancer inpatients.
Methods: We used a cross-sectional method to observe if the current screening method was being completed on admission on an inpatient ward of 40 patients on one particular day. Second, we delivered PHQ-9 and GAD-7 as screening tools on the same inpatients on the same day to compare with the current screening method.
Results: Prevalence of depression was 54.5% (n = 18) and that of generalized anxiety was 36.4% (n = 12), regardless of severity, when using PHQ-9 and GAD-7. Comparatively, the current method of screening was able to pick up 16.6% (n = 3) of cases of depression and 16.6% (n = 2) of cases of generalised anxiety.
Conclusion: We concluded that improvement was required in the screening process for depression and anxiety by devising a new screening tool specific to our cancer population.
Key words: Anxiety, cancer, depression, screening
References
Shankar A, Dracham C, Ghoshal S, et al. Prevalence of depression and anxiety disorder in cancer patients: An institutional experience. Indian J Cancer 2016;53:432-4.
Vodermaier A, Linden W, Siu C. Screening for emotional distress in cancer patients: A systematic review of assessment instruments. J Natl Cancer Inst 2009;101:1464‑88.
Patient Health Questionnaire Screeners. Available from: http://www.phqscreeners.com/select-screener/41. [Last accessed on 2017 Dec 01].
Kroenke K, Wu J, Yu W, et al. The patient health questionnaire anxiety and depression scale (PHQ-ADS): Initial validation in three clinical trials. Psychosom Med 2016; 78:716-27.
Gholizadeh L, Khan SA, Vahedi F, et al. Sensitivity and specificity of Urdu version of the PHQ-9 to screen depression in patients with coronary artery disease. Contemp Nurse 2017;53:75-81.
Nice Guidance. Depression in Adults: Recognition and Management; 2009. Available from: https://www.nice.org. uk/guidance/CG90. [Last accessed on 2017 Dec 01].
Thalén-Lindström A. Screening and Assessment of Distress, Anxiety, and Depression in Cancer Patients. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 1006. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis; 2014. p. 75.
Ali BS, Reza H, Khan MM, et al. Development of an indigenous screening instrument in Pakistan: The Aga Khan university anxiety and depression scale. J Pak Med Assoc 1998; 48:261-5.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal of Cancer & Allied Specialties (JCAS) right-of-first publication. In addition, the work will be simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This license allows others to share the work in whole or part (for non-commercial purpose), with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in JCAS.
Furthermore, authors are free to enter into separate contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to share their work online or in medical or scientific conferences prior to or during submission process.
