Comparison of the Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Bladder Cancer after Radical Cystectomy by Orthotopic and Conduit Methods and Non-surgical Treatments

Today, bladder cancer causes a lot of mortality and morbidity and imposes huge costs directly and indirectly on society. With the expansion of new treatment methods and the changes these methods bring to the quality of life and longevity of patients, physical disorders are also increasing among these patients.

In the present study, 487 patients with bladder cancer were assigned to three groups of non-surgical treatment, orthotopic, and conduit surgery techniques, and each group of patients was examined 1-2 months before the start of treatment and 6-8 months after that using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) questionnaire.

In this study, the prevalence of mood disorders in the conduit surgery group increased from 55.07% before surgery to 79.12% after surgery, which was statistically significant (P=0.003). Nonetheless, there was no significant increase in the other two groups. In the investigation of anxiety disorders, the prevalence of anxiety disorders increased from 22.79% to 43.68% in the conduit surgery group, which was statistically significant (P=0.0016).

According to the nature of the disease, before starting the treatment of these patients, by conducting psychological counseling and providing sufficient information to the patients, the necessary preparation should be created in the patients to accept the side effects caused by the treatment and reduce its psychological burden, which greatly improves the treatment results.