Psychiatric–Medical ComorbidityQuality of life in patients with Behçet's disease: the impact of major depression
Introduction
Behçet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic disorder which may affect important organ systems (e.g., vascular, central nervous and gastrointestinal) in addition to the clinical triad including recurrent oral and genital ulcers, and uveitis [1], [2], [3]. It occurs most commonly in young adults and the Turkish population with prevalence rate of 42 per 10 000 [3], [4]. The etiology of BD is unknown, although genetic susceptibility, autoimmunity and environmental factors are suspected [2]. Its main pathologic lesions are vasculitis or perivascular inflammation [3].
In recent years, there has been growing interest regarding the psychiatric aspects of BD. Several studies demonstrate that there is a stress factor in most patients with BD before the initial onset or relapse of the disease [5], [6], [7]. Moreover, it has been reported that subjects with BD have higher anxiety and depression levels [5], [6] and lower quality of life (QoL) [8], [9] than healthy controls. Comorbid depression is frequent in patients with various chronic medical diseases [10], [11], [12], [13], and it strongly influences QoL in these patients [10], [14], [15], [16], [17]. Similarly, approximately 1/5 of BD patients have major depression (MD) at the time of clinical evaluation [18] and existence of clinical depression might affect QoL in patients with BD.
However, to date, the associations of MD and QoL in BD patients have not been adequately researched. Additionally, there is no study comparing the QoL of BD patients without psychiatric disorders to healthy controls. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the impact of MD, which is a relatively frequent psychiatric morbidity, on QoL in BD patients.
Section snippets
Method
The study included 214 consecutive BD outpatients who presented to the Dermatology Department of the Konya Research and Training Hospital of Başkent University between June 2005 and April 2006. Patients with central nervous system involvement due to BD (n=9) or other medical illnesses (n=1), uncontrolled endocrine abnormalities (n=4), chronic medical illnesses (n=6), and those who received systemic corticosteroid (n=17), immunosuppressive (n=5), psychotrophic (n=8) or combination (n=4)
Results
As presented in Table 1, there was no significant difference with regard to demographic characteristics among the four study groups. Overall, the mean±S.D. duration of illness was 8.58±6.78 years in BD patients (7.12±4.60 and 10.04±8.25 years in BD patients with and without MD, respectively, t=1.54, P=.131). The frequency of clinical manifestations of BD was similar in BD patients with and without MD (Table 2).
The mean±S.D. score of BDI was 25.44±5.10 in psychiatric patients with MD,
Discussion
To the best our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of MD on QoL in BD patients. The results of this study demonstrate that clinical depression is an important factor that negatively affects QoL in BD patients. Our results are consistent with previous studies that reported that depressive symptoms are associated with a decrease in QoL of patients with chronic medical conditions such as multiple sclerosis [15], [16], [26], rheumatoid arthritis [27], type II diabetes [14],
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2024, Dermatologic ClinicsA review of patient-reported outcome measures used in uveitis
2023, Survey of OphthalmologyDepression in Behçet's disease patients: Relationship with disease pattern, activity and quality of life
2021, Egyptian RheumatologistCitation Excerpt :Also a significant difference was reported between depressed and non depressed BD patients and a significant negative relation was reported between depression score and SF-36 QoL. Uguz et al. [34] reported that major depression had a negative impact on QoL of BD patients and negatively correlated with the severity of depressive symptoms. In another study, [35] life satisfaction and quality were impaired in BD patients.
The impact of personality on quality of life and disease activity in patients with Behcet's disease: A pilot study
2014, Comprehensive PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :In recent studies anxiety and depression were found to be associated with disease activity and quality of life in BD. Uguz et al. reported that major depression had a negative impact on QOL of BD patients and that QOL is negatively correlated with the severity of depressive symptoms [47]. Another study revealed positive correlations between BDI scores and patient's impression of disease activity in BD patients [5].
The quality of life in patients with Behçet's disease
2011, Asian Nursing ResearchCitation Excerpt :Patients’ social relationships are affected by the disease. Previous studies have shown that the impact of Behçet’s disease on QoL (Bernabe, Marcenes, Mather, Phillips, & Fortune, 2010; Bodur, Borman, Özdemir, Atan, & Kural, 2006; Ertam et al., 2009; Gür, Saraç, Burkan, Nas, & Çevik, 2006; Moses, Fisher, & Yazıcı, 2008; Mumcu et al., 2009; Tanrıverdi et al., 2003; Uğuz et al., 2006, 2007). In our study, we found that women’s physical role subscale scores are lower than men’s.