Depression in breast cancer patients

Breast cancer is the third most common illness in the world and the most frequent malignant disease with women. Cytotoxic therapy is connected to significant psychiatric adverse effects, and the appearance of depressive symptoms is the most common. The main goal is determining the degree of depression with breast cancer patients in the oncology ward of the University Clinical Hospital in Niš and its connection to their marital status, age, level of education, economic status and the number of therapy cycles. This research is a prospective study. The statistical data analysis included measures of descriptive and analytical statistics. The presence of depressive symptoms of different intensity was showed in 76.00% of the interviewees in group I, and the second included 77.4%. The frequency distributions show that 27.084% interviewees from the first group showed signs of depressive symptoms, while the second included 25%. The intensity of these symptoms categorizes them into the group of moderate to significantly expressed depressive states, so they require therapeutic treatment. Depression is significantly more often recorded with cancer patients receiving cytotoxic therapy; mild depression is the most common, followed by moderate and severe depression.

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