Depression levels of inpatients in Ardahan State Hospital

Objective: Among patients with physical illnesses, depression is the most common psychiatric disorder, and it has a negative impact on patients’ work, family, and social relations as well as current physical condition. In this study inpatients of Ardahan State Hospital were inspected for their depression levels and the compression of the illnesses.

Methods: Between November and December of 2013, 196 patients hospitalized in internal branches of Ardahan State Hospital, Sociodemographic form, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were used. Results were evaluated with ANOVA and Tukey HSD by using SPSS v17.0.

Results: Thirty-five Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), 33 Osteoarthritis (OA), 30 Back Pain (LP), 33 Hypertension (HT), 30 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) and 35 patients from other diseases were enrolled in the study. There were no significant differences between sexes, but OA patients were statically older. When The cut-off value was 7 for Depression sub-scale, 74.8% of COPD, 48.5% of OA, 60% of LP, 30% of HT, 56.7% of DM and 34.3% of the patients were over 7 points. When diseases were compared to each other, COPD patients’ depression levels were higher than HT and others, BP patients’ were higher than others.

Conclusion: Depression causes disability, and when physically ill patients suffer from depression, their life quality is extremely lowered. In the literature we could not find any study comparing illnesses. In this study, COPD and BP patients scored higher points for depression. 74.8% of COPD patients scored over 7 on the HADS-D scale, which was higher than expected. In the literature, Van Ede et al. reported depression rates of up to 42% . In our study high depression rates may be a result of relatively low cut-off scores and a lack of social support of our patients (as 82.9% of them reported); additionally, most of the studies in the literature have been conducted with outpatients. The rate of BP patients was also high at 60% LP. Vereckei et al. found 49% of inpatients with back pain to be suffering depression using Beck Depression Scale. Pain in BP patients is continuous, therefore they tend to be depressed. Depression rates are high in all inpatients with chronic illnesses, so patients must be evaluated carefully.