Prevalência de ansiedade, depressão e características clínico - epidemiológicas em pacientes com dor crônica

Abstract

Chronic pain is defined as an unpleasant sensorial an emotional experience, which is associated or described in terms of tissue injury. Despite the large number of publications, suggesting the presence of anxiety and depression among chronic pain patients, few studies follow a proper methodology that refer to an association between pain, and anxiety and / or depressive disorders. To determine the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders and describe the clinical – epidemiological characteristics of chronic pain patients seen at the Pain Center of Professor Edgard Santos University Hospital (HUPES), in Salvador, Bahia. A cross-sectional study including 91 patients using the following instruments: Visual Analogical Scale (VAS) for pain converted to numeric scale; Hospital Anxiety and Depression HAD Scale, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview - Brazilian Version 5.0.0 (M.I.N.I. PLUS), within the period of March 2002 to July 2003. The patients’ age was in average 42.8 ± 7.7 years, being female and male. We observed a prevalence of married catholic patients, which had completed high school. The occurrence of anxious patients with depressive symptoms and depressed patients with anxious symptoms was statistically meaningful, which is attributed to the association between these symptoms and the co-morbidity between anxiety and depression in chronic pain patients. After using the MINI – plus, we observed derangement of the present emotional state in of the sample, being depression, dysthymia, maniac and hippomaniac episode, and anxiety derangement. The socio-demographic data of the studied population, as well as the high frequency of mental symptoms are compatible with literature findings, although a higher incidence of anxiety was observed, contradicting the chronic pain literature.