[Use of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to evaluate anxiety and depression in fibromyalgia patients]

Abstract

Introduction: The HADS is a questionnaire widely used to evaluate anxiety and depression, although its use in fibromyalgia patients has not yet been reported. The aim of this study is to know the usefulness of the HADS to evaluate the emotional aspects related to fibromyalgia patients.

Methods: This paper studies a sample of 301 fibromyalgia patients. The scientific goodness of the questionnaire is analyzed, and its structure is compared with other models by confirmatory factor analysis. Two external severity indices are used, number of tender points and patient's employment situation.

Results: The results show higher levels of anxiety than in other disorders, adequate reliability and a three-factor model with better statistical fit. Nevertheless, this structure was not shown more useful than the two-factor structure for the external criteria studied.

Conclusions: The HADS has been shown to be a useful tool for exploring the presence of anxiety and depression in fibromyalgia patients and that the number of tender points does not seem to be related to the severity of the psychological aspects measured by the HADS in our sample, while there does seem to be a correspondence between psychological condition and absence from work.