What are the patient characteristics that predict worsening depression/anxiety in COPD patients?
David Foord
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is an inflammatory lung disease that obstructs airflow from the lungs. It is known that COPD patients often experience mental health issues including anxiety and depression. Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) score is a common measure used to assess the level of symptoms. This study aims to identify predictors of HAD score among COPD patients.
This study used a dataset of 101 COPD patients (aged 44-88, 36 female). Linear regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between several candidate predictor variables and HAD score. Predictors were excluded for invalid data and where the regression model couldn’t reject chance at significance level p < 0.05. Predictors were selected primarily for improving the adjusted R-squared value with smaller 95% confidence interval (CI) ranges.
The final model identified two significant predictors of HAD score: the COPD Assessment Test (CAT) score and age. CAT score, a measure of disease severity, was positively associated with HAD score. For every 1 unit increase in CAT score, HAD score increased by 0.50 (95% CI 0.35, 0.66; p < 0.001). For every 1 year increase in age, HAD score decreased by 0.17 (95% CI -0.33, -0.02; p = 0.029). The model explained 32.63% of the variance in HAD scores (adjusted R-squared).
The findings highlight that more severe COPD symptoms are associated with worse mental health outcomes, indicating a need for comprehensive health care that addresses both the physical and mental health impacts of COPD. The negative association between age and HAD score may suggest that older patients have developed better coping mechanisms or have benefited from better medical management. Further research is needed to explore these relationships and develop targeted interventions to improve the psychological well-being of COPD patients.