Psychiatric disorders in myasthenia gravis

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG). Method: Forty-one patients with MG answered to a structured psychiatric interview (MINI-Plus). Results: Eleven (26.1%) patients were diagnosed with a depressive disorder and 19 (46.3%) were diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Patients with dysthymia were older (p=0.029) and had longer disease duration (p=0.006). Patients with social phobia also had longer disease duration (p=0.039). Conclusion: Psychiatric disorders in MG are common, especially depressive and anxiety disorders.

Anxiety And Depression Symptoms In Patients With Generalized Myasthenia Gravis

“…While we have failed to establish a significant difference between the genders in terms of BDS values, BAS values were found to be highly and statistically significant in the female patients (p=0.013). While the present study has established a statistically significant relationship between the duration of disease and the symptoms of anxiety and depression (respectively rs 0.68, 0.56 and p=0.016 for BAS and BDS values) in line with the finding of the literature (3,6,20) , no statistical significance was established between the relationship with said findings and the severity of the disease since only the Osserman stage II cases were included in the study. As a result of the assessment of the study results, the scores of the cases that had been previously observed in the intensive care unit due to myasthenic crisis, deterioration or the possibility thereof, without necessarily having a tracheal intubation-ventilation experience, were found to be higher than others, which was determined as statistically significant for bother scores (value for BAS and BDS respectively p=0.018, p=0.021).…”

“…As a matter of fact, stressful life events can be included in the patient's medical history in the case of autoimmune diseases, and they are explained through their role in the development of immune dysregulation and autoimmunity via hypothalamo-hypophysio-adrenal axis glucocorticoid and catecholamines (4,13,17) . Despite the studies reporting that the MG patients show various psychiatric symptoms, particularly depression and anxiety symptoms, more than other patients (3,17) , there are nevertheless studies that conflict with this view (18) . Moreover, while some of the studies give prominence to the symptoms of anxiety (6,19) , some other studies give prominence to the symptoms of depression (17,20) .…”

“…serves to make the issue a taboo (3,5) . The asymmetrical, daily fluctuating and, in some cases, self-healing muscle weakness observed in the myasthenia cases may at least result in a psychiatric diagnosis at the outset (4,(13)(14)(15) .…”

Neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with thymoma-associated and non-thymoma myasthenia gravis

“…A similar-sized sample using a structured psychiatric interview (MINI-Plus) found 26% to have a depression disorder and 46% an anxiety disorder. [3] We used the BDI-II to measure depression and found higher overall scores compared with two larger cohorts, North American and Japanese, who used the same tool. MG patients with high scores on the BDI-II were also at greater risk for suicidal behaviour.…”

“…Patients with thymoma-associated MG often have more severe disease than non-thymoma-associated patients, and may have additional non-motor symptoms and frequently require longterm treatment. [2] Psychiatric symptoms have been reported in MG patients, [3,4] although little is known about their frequency or their rela tion to thymoma MG. The only published report documents three cases of psychosis in which psychotic symptoms persisted despite thymectomy.…”