engleski

Interaction of breast cancer tumor size, patient age and depression ; A cross-sectional study in Croatia

Female cancer patients are almost two times more vulnerable to depression than men. 16% of them report clinical levels of depression, compared to 8% of men. This is consistent with the comparably higher prevalence of depression in female population in general. We adopted this premise of our work from the observational, epidemiological perspective although we do respect the doubts expressed by Parker and Brotchie 2010. Anyhow, younger breast cancer patients are at higher risk for depression, and this observation is partially inconsistent with the state in the general population. Primary objective was to find out whether the risk for depression decreases with patients’ age. If it were so, our second objective was to check if there are any moderating effects of age to the association of biological variables and depression. We performed this cross-sectional study at Department of Medical Oncology, University Hospital for Tumors Zagreb, University Hospital Center "Sestre milosrdnice" Zagreb, Croatia during Spring 2015. Targeted population was the general population of patients diagnosed with breast cancer. We included a consecutive sample of patients. Depression was measured by Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). The analysis was performed by “PROCESS” Release 2.16.2 and executed from within IBM SPSS version 23. We included 153 breast cancer patients. Correlation of age and BDI-II result was indeed a negative one, but it was not significant (Spearman’s ρ=-0.05 ; p=0.572). However, interaction between age and tumor size was significant (p=0.036). In patients younger than 47 years (what was 23% of all patients), association of tumor size and BDI- II was significant and positive: larger the tumor, more severe the depression. In patients older than 61, the association of tumor size and BDI-II become negative, but it was not significant. We have not observed significant interaction of depression, age and any other biological variable. Breast cancer patients’ perception of tumor size and it’s potential as stressor responsible for the increased risk for depression is moderated by patients’ age.

breast cancer ; tumor size ; depression, age

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