title: [Anxiety and depression in cancer patients during the course of radiotherapy treatment].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Undergoing radiotherapy is often associated with severe impairment of quality of life in cancer patients. Especially psychosocial aspects like anxiety and depression play a major role. The aim of this study was to closely analyze anxiety and depression during the course of radiotherapy treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 60 patients, who received radiotherapy because of a tumor disease between June 2005 and April 2006, were included in the prospective study; 57 (95%) patients were primarily treated with radiotherapy. In 72% of the cases the intention to treat was curable, in 18% palliative. Anxiety and depression (HADS-D) were assessed at three points in time: before (A) and after (B) radiotherapy treatment (RT), and 6 weeks after finishing RT at the follow-up appointment (C).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Before therapy (A), 41% of the treated patients showed positive or marginally positive symptoms of anxiety and 33% symptoms of depression. The symptoms of anxiety significantly decreased during the course of therapy. The proportion of patients with a positive score of anxiety dropped from 16% at the beginning of RT (A) to 9% after the RT (B; p = 0.04). In addition, there was an increase in the number of patients who scored negatively with regard to anxiety from 59% (A) to 72% (B; p = 0.04). With regard to the median score of anxiety, no statistically significant change (p > 0.05) was observed during therapy, while for depression, the number of positively tested patients also decreased significantly during the course of therapy from the beginning of RT (A, 14%) to the first follow-up appointment (C, 9%; p = 0.02). Furthermore, the number of negatively tested patients rose by 8% (p = 0.02). During the whole course of the study, the median score of depression decreased from 6 (A) to 5 points (C; p = 0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  More than one third of the treated patients suffered from positive or marginally positive symptoms of anxiety and depression. This present study showed a decrease of anxiety and depression symptoms during the course of radiotherapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiotherapy, Regensburg University Medical Center, Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11, 93042 Regensburg. julia.maurer@klinik.uni-regensburg.de
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maurer
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schäfer
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Maurer
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Kölbl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology* / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome