World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

THE PSYCHIATRIC ASPECTS (DEPRESSION & ANXIETY) IN PATIENTS WITH ACROMEGALY: A STUDY OF INFLUENCING FACTORS

Hussein Jebur Abed* and Abbas Mahdi Rahmah

ABSTRACT

Background: Acromegaly is a chronic illness in the setting of excessive levels of GH and IGF-1 leading to coarse
physical features and requires assessment for surgical and non-surgical management with management of
associated comorbidities. the disease features and chronicity have negative influences on quality of life from
psychiatric point of view in addition to biochemical aspects. Aim of study: To assess the rate of depression and
anxiety in acromegaly patients with correlation to age, gender, duration of disease, hypophysectomy, Octreotide
use, deep xray therapy and response to all treatments modalities. Methods: This was a cross sectional study done
at the national diabetes center in Baghdad, Iraq. during a period of ten months from November 2020 to August
2021.it included 80 known Acromegalic adults treated with either surgical or non-surgical methods or both . a
questionnaire was utilized to obtain demographic & clinical data .HAM –A scale was used to assess Anxiety while
BDI II was used to assess depression. Results: In this study, 45% of cases had mild anxiety, 16.3% had moderate
anxiety and 2.5% had severe anxiety. The prevalence of moderate to severe anxiety was significantly higher with
duration of disease > 10 years (53.8 %, p=0.015), those with abnormal GH level (52.2 %, p= 0.001) and those with
associated diabetes (52%, p=0.002). regarding depression, 36.3% of patients were in mild depression, 18.8 % were
in moderate depression And 2.5 % were in severe depression. moderate to severe depression was significantly
higher among acromegalic patients who had diabetes (40%, p=0.011), no significant association (p> 0.05) was
found between depression and other demographic and clinical characteristics. Conclusion: Longer duration of
Acromegaly and failure of GH suppression down to the previously specified target increases the chance of anxiety
in Acromegaly patients. Coexistent diabetes mellitus increases the chance of depression in addition to its impact on
Anxiety.

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