Symptoms of depression and anxiety in Serbian patients with systemic sclerosis: impact of disease severity and socioeconomic factors

Abstract

This study aimed to assess symptoms of depression and anxiety in Serbian patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) and to estimate the impact of disease severity and socioeconomic factors on development of depression and anxiety in SSc. Thirty-five patients with SSc and 30 age- and gender-matched healthy individuals participated. Symptoms of depression and anxiety were evaluated using the Beck's depression inventory and Zung's anxiety self-assessment scale. We estimated the impact of gender, age, economic status, marital status, disease duration, disease subset (limited or diffuse), and some clinical features on development of depressive symptoms and anxiety in patients with SSc. Symptoms of depression were found in 68.6% of patients (compared with 23.3% in the control group), were more frequent in patients with longer disease duration and in female and older patients, and were more common in unemployed and retired patients than in employed individuals. No differences in anxiety and depressive symptoms was noticed between patients with limited and diffuse SSc or those with or without restrictive lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, finger-tip ulcers, and heart involvement. Symptoms of depression were associated with severe pain. Symptoms of anxiety were found in 80% of patients compared with 13.3% of healthy individuals and were equally as frequent in patients of different gender, age, socioeconomic status, and disease duration and severity. Symptoms of depression and anxiety are common in Serbian patients with SSc. Depressive symptoms depended mostly on socioeconomic factors, disease duration, and pain intensity, whereas disease severity had no significant impact on development of depressive symptoms and anxiety.

Correlation of articular involvement, skin disfigurement and unemployment with depressive symptoms in patients with systemic sclerosis: a hospital sample

“…Unemployed subjects were more frequent among those with more depressive symptoms; this might support evidence for the role of unemployment as a risk factor for depression, although these patients are also significantly older and therefore might be retired. This finding also suggests that more severe and disabling forms of SSc might lead at the same time to more depression and less ability to work, as also suggested by the multivariate analysis and recent similar contributions on this topic …”

In Systemic Sclerosis, Anxiety and Depression Assessed by Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale Are Independently Associated with Disability and Psychological Factors

“…While anxiety has been largely studied in other chronic diseases and in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) [16, 17], only few studies addressed this problem in SSc patients [13, 15, 18–20], in which it was associated with education, joint deformity, disease activity, disease duration [21], and gender [19]. However, none of these studies evaluated the potential effects of self-esteem, mouth, and hand disability on anxiety and depression in SSc.…”

“…Baubet et al used HADS only as a screening tool for anxiety and depressive disorders in SSc patients then evaluated by Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview [13]. Nguyen, assessing differences in HADS according to gender, did not evaluate correlation between HADS scores and other parameters [19]. …”

Anxiety and Depression in Inflammatory Rheumatic Diseases

“…Around 60% of our SSc patients were depressive and the most common reasons for depression was fatigue and work inhibition. Ostojic et al [37] found that depressive symptoms depended mostly on socioeconomic factors, disease duration, and pain intensity, whereas disease severity had no significant impact on development of depressive symptoms and anxiety. They used BDI to assess depression, their cohort was a little bit larger than ours, and their research was located in Serbia.…”