Objective: To clarify whether depression and anxiety are similar in terms of their associations with other clinical variables.

Background: Although depression and anxiety are important determinants of quality of life (QOL) in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), it is unclear whether depression and anxiety are associated with similar demographic and clinical features.

Methods: 39 patients with PD participated in this study. Patients were associated clinically using assessment instruments comprising both neurologist-administered rating scales and self-administered questionnaires. The former assessments were the modified Hoehn and Yahr Scale (HY), the Unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). The latter scales included State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), an apathy scale (AS), and 2 QOL instruments: the EuroQoL (EQ-5D) and the 39-item Parkinson’s disease questionnaire (PDQ-39).

Results: Anxiety (STAI ≥45 for men or ≥46 for women) was diagnosed in 55% of the patients and 58% were diagnosed to have depression (BDI ≥14). 18% of the total sample had anxiety without depression, whereas 21% had depression without anxiety. Both STAI and BDI scores were negatively correlated with 2 QOL scales and positively associated with AS score. BDI scores were associated with age at onset, duration of illness, HY stage, and UPDRS scores, whereas STAI scores were not associated with these variables.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that anxiety and depression may be separable in PD, although both are common in patients with PD and are associated with QOL.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/clinical-correlates-of-depression-and-anxiety-in-patients-with-parkinsons-disease/