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. 2021 Jan 22;21(1):94.
doi: 10.1186/s12885-020-07773-6.

Depression, anxiety, fatigue, and quality of life in a large sample of patients suffering from head and neck cancer in comparison with the general population

C Hammermüller  1 , A Hinz  2 , A Dietz  1 , G Wichmann  1 , M Pirlich  1 , T Berger  1 , K Zimmermann  1 , T Neumuth  3 , A Mehnert-Theuerkauf  2 , S Wiegand #  1 , V Zebralla #  4
Affiliations

Depression, anxiety, fatigue, and quality of life in a large sample of patients suffering from head and neck cancer in comparison with the general population

C Hammermüller et al. BMC Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) often leads to visible and severe functional impairments. In addition, patients often suffer from a variety of psychosocial problems, significantly associated with a decreased quality of life. We aimed to compare depression, anxiety, fatigue and quality of life (QoL) between HNC patients and a large sample of the general population in Germany and to examine the impact of sociodemographic, behavioral and clinical factors on these symptoms.

Methods: We assessed data of HNC patients during the aftercare consultation at the Leipzig University Medical Center with a patient reported outcome (PRO) tool named "OncoFunction". Depression, anxiety, fatigue and QoL were assessed using validated outcome measures including the PHQ-9, the GAD-2, and the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire.

Results: A total of 817 HNC patients were included in our study and compared to a sample of 5018 individuals of the general German population. HNC patients showed significantly higher levels of impairment in all dimensions assessed. Examination of association between depression, anxiety, fatigue and QoL and clinical as well as sociodemographic variables showed significant relationships between occupational status, ECOG-state, body mass index and time since diagnosis.

Conclusions: HNC patients suffer significantly from psychological distress. The used questionnaires are suitable for the use in daily routine practice and can be helpful to increase the detection of depression, anxiety and fatigue and therefore can improve HNC aftercare.

Keywords: Aftercare; Depression; Fatigue; Head neck cancer (HNC); Quality of life (QOL); Survivorship.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures:

Dr. Neumuth reports non-financial support from IMPULS Technologiemanagement UG, during the conduct of the study; and TN is shareholder of IMPULS Technologiemanagement UG.

The other authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
CONSORT diagram demonstrating case selection in the head and neck cancer group and the normal population
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Mean scores of the dependent variables, broken down by gender and age group, for a PHQ-9; b GAD-2; c Fatigue; d QoL. *: p<.05; ***: p<.001
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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