Anxiety, depression likely with new lymphoma diagnoses
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NEW ORLEANS — Patients diagnosed with lymphoma were likely to experience anxiety and depression, lowering overall quality of life, according to a presenter at ASH Annual Meeting and Exhibition.
“Psychological burden is substantial for people in the first 6 months of their lymphoma or myeloma diagnosis, with the majority experience in anxiety and or depression,” Oreofe O. Odejide, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said during her poster presentation. “The fact that individuals with lower social support and financial burden, which are potentially modifiable factors, had higher odds of this disorder suggest that we urgently need interventions that target these issues so that we can ameliorate psychosocial distress in this population.”
Odejide and colleagues initiated a 44-item survey to measure anxiety and depression among patients with new diagnoses of lymphoma or myeloma. Patients (18 years of age or older) could complete the survey online or on paper within 6 months of their cancer diagnosis.
As of July 2022, 192 completed the survey (response rate: 76.5%). Almost half of responders (49%) were over 60 years — 80.7% had lymphoma and 19.3% myeloma. The majority of respondents were male (55.3%), white (85.9%) and married or living with a partner (73.4%).
Odejide said more than half of the cohort (56.3%) had anxiety and/or depression — 51.6% of respondents with anxiety and 27.6% with depression.
“T here was quite an overlap of this condition ... as they were comorbid in almost a quarter of respondents,” Odejide said.
Anxiety risk correlated with age younger than 60 years (OR = 2.24; 95% CI, 1.17-4.29), female gender (OR = 2.29; 95% CI, 1.18-4.46) and low financial satisfaction (OR = 2.24; 95% CI, 1.01-4.98). Higher odds of epression correlated with low social support (OR = 2.28; 95% CI, 1.15-4.51) and low levels of satisfaction with finances (OR = 2.61; 95% CI, 1.2-5.22).
Patients with anxiety were more likely to report lower quality of life compared with those without anxiety (2.61 vs. 5.22, P < .001). Patients with depression also reported lower quality of life vs. those without depression (3.96 vs. 5.65, P < .001).
“The main quality of life scores for individuals experiencing anxiety were significantly lower when compared [with] individuals who are not experiencing anxiety and similarly, there were lower quality of life scores for those experiencing depression vs. those without depression,” she said. “Given the strong association of anxiety and depression with impaired quality of life, interventions that address psychosocial distress also have strong potential to improve patient's quality of life.”
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Odejide O, et al. Poster 3610. Presented at: ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition; Dec. 10-13, 2022; New Orleans.
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