Anxiety and depressive symptoms at different stages of malignant melanoma

Abstract

The HAD scale was used to assess anxiety and depressive symptoms in three groups of individuals visiting an oncology clinic, healthy persons with hereditary melanoma (group DNS), patients treated for cutaneous malignant melanoma stage I (group MMl), and patients with generalized disease (group MM2). No differences were found on the anxiety subscale, although MM2 scored higher than the other groups on two out of seven anxiety items. The depression subscale, and six out of seven items in this subscale showed higher scores for MM2 than for the other two groups. In group MM2 as compared to the other two groups, there was a higher proportion of individuals scoring above the cut-off point for potentially clinical cases on the depression subscale, but not on the anxiety subscale. A principal component analysis yielded an 'anxiety' factor, a 'depression' factor and a 'restlessness' factor. Of these factors, anxiety and 'depression' showed higher values for MM2 than for the other two groups, while no differences were found For 'restlessness'.

Anxiety, Depression and Worry in Gastrointestinal Cancer Patients Attending Medical Follow-Up Control Visits

“…A total of 15% were considered HAD anxiety 'borderline' or 'possible' cases and 12% fell into these categories for HAD depression. These values are comparable to those reported by Brandberg and co-workers (25) for patients at different stages of malignant melanoma ( 19% 'borderline' or 'possible' anxiety cases, and 8% 'borderline' or 'possible' depression). The numerical scale anxiety levels and reports on worries agree well with results from previous studies (18,19) performed on patients with a variety of cancer types at a point in time approximately 6 years after diagnosis and treatment.…”

“…The numerical scale scores were transformed to a category scale (none = 0, little = 1-3, moderate = 4-6, strong = 7-10) (cf. 5,25). Most of the patients (60%-83%) reported no anxiety before, during or after the visit.…”

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale: A meta confirmatory factor analysis

“…A total of eight different factor structures have been suggested in the literature as providing the 'best fit' to the HADS item structure (1 unidimensional distress, 2 bidimensional consisting anxiety and depression, and 5 tridimensional consisting of anxiety depression and restlessness/agitation/negative-affectivity) [1,8,[28][29][30][31][32]. Furthermore, two bifactor structures were considered since this model has been shown to provide the best fit in other studies jointly assessing symptoms of anxiety and depression [17,18].…”

Malignant Melanoma S3‐Guideline “Diagnosis, Therapy and Follow‐up of Melanoma”

“…The few available comparative studies have revealed that mixed groups with primarily early-stage melanoma patients on average perform better as to quality of life than those with other malignancies. Stress requiring treatment has been ascertained in 10-45 % of melanoma patients [654][655][656][657][658][659]. With advanced disease, impairment of physical and role functions [660] as well as financial and professional problems emerged.…”