Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression in Hospitalized Patients

Hospitalization can be defined as the confinement of a patient in a hospital or the period of such confinement. Most health-care professionals concentrate on the possible somatic illness often overlooking the emotional factors associated with pain, disability and uncertainty to cope with the medical problem which may lead to feelings of anxiety and depression. Anxiety is a state of apprehension or unease arising out of anticipation of danger while depression is the sadness of mood or loss of interest and/or pleasure in almost all activities. Screening for anxiety or depression is not routinely employed despite symptoms of anxiety and depression being common at this point. The Prospective, cross-sectional study was carried out to screen hospitalized patients for anxiety and depression and find the correlation between them. Thirty patients, aged 30-50 years, hospitalized for at least 10 days & conscious and with no history of diagnosis of current or past psychiatric disorder or any previous history of hospitalization were screened on Beck’s Anxiety Inventory and Beck’s Depression Inventory. The prevalence of anxiety symptoms was found to be higher in males than females (16.64.97, 11.92.92); whereas depressive symptoms was higher in females than males (16.69.51, 15.75.94). The correlation between anxiety and depression score was found with significant p value <0.05. The study showed prevalence of anxiety and depressive symptoms in hospitalized patients as well as correlation between the two. It suggests that the introduction of these scales into general hospital practice would facilitate the large task of detection and management of emotional disorder in hospitalized patients and ensure an all rounded approach towards rehabilitation.