The Prevalence & Severity of Depression in patients with chronic obstructive airway disease

Objective:  To determine the Prevalence & Severity of depression in Chronic Obstructive Airway Diseases (COPD) patients. Background: Chronic Obstructive Airway Disease is a chronic heterogeneous disease that is also progressive. Depression is a common entity in chronic diseases. COPD causes long-term respiratory symptoms and depression is commonly found in these patients. The symptoms of these two diseases are overlapping and depression in COPD patients’ needs to be diagnosed and adequately treated. Untreated patients lead to poor control of respiratory symptoms and further deterioration of the illness. Our study aimed to determine prevalence and severity of depression in COPD patients using HAM-D score. Material and Methods: This study was conducted in Medicine & Pulmonology OPD, Fuji Foundation Hospital, Rawalpindi from August 2019 to February 2021. Using a cross sectional study design, a total of 169 cases of COPD were recruited and tested for the presence of absence of depression using the HAM-D rating scale and observations were recorded. Results: Total 169 patients recruited in this study with female & male percentage of 59% and 47% respectively.  The Mean duration of illness was 11.5 years ± 6.48. The incidence of Anxiety & Depression was high (45% and 36%) in moderate to severe disease with total prevalence of 54 % among participants in the study. Conclusion: Anxiety & depression is commonly prevalent in COPD patients. Female patients are found to have more psychological disturbance irrespective to their COPD severity. Psychological impairment must be carefully evaluated in patients having COPD.