Severity Assessment And Association Of Depression In COPD Patients With The Help Of HAM-D Scale And Spirometry In Nilgiris

Abstract

Psychological Co-morbidity like Depression comes with a considerable reduction in the quality of mental health and often goes underdiagnosed among COPD patients. Implementing screening tools like the HAM-D scale tailored to COPD assessment can help detect depressive thoughts in patients. A cross-sectional study was conducted for six months with purposive sampling in the Government headquarters hospital, Ooty.

Patients were included in the study based on inclusion and exclusion principles. All patients were confirmed with Spirometry, categorized into different stages of severity and subjected to depression assessment using the HAM-D scale. Data were tabulated and assessed for statistical significance. The statistical analysis was done for data collection and the degree of association was estimated using chi-square tests in SPSS (25^th version) software. A higher number of samples belonged to the moderate COPD group (51). Of which 29.4% had severe Depression. 80% (eight out of ten) of severe COPD patients had severe depressive symptoms suggestive of increasing depression scores and progressing disease. P-value of significance (p<0.05) was obtained for the severity of the illness, socioeconomic status, and duration of disease variables.

Early detection of mental disabilities like Depression is necessary for proper management and control of COPD. Attention is to be given to developing screening tools for examining depressive ideals during the disease and ensuring pulmonary rehabilitation for patients' well-being.