Prevalence of Anxiety and Depression in Diabetic Patients: A Comparative Study

Background: Living with diabetes and managing it can have substantial emotional burden on individuals. These changes might affect individuals’ lives in terms of stress and depression. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of stress and depression among diabetic women who referred to endocrine clinic of Qazvin in 2014. Methods: For this purpose, 250 patients (125 individuals suffering from diabetes and 125 individuals as a control group) participated in this study. All individuals completed the beck depression inventory and the cattell anxiety inventory. In addition to these, demographic and clinical records were collected from their medical records and were analyzed by appropriate statistical methods. Results: In terms of the Maximum of mild anxiety there were 52 diabetic individuals (41.6%) versus 69 individuals of the control group (55.2%); in terms of Moderate-severe anxiety there were 73 cases (58.4%) versus 56 patients (44.8%) (P value = 0.031). In studying the Maximum of mild depression, there were 43 patients (34.4%) versus 92 (73.6%); in terms of Moderate-severe depression, there were 82 patients (65.6%) versus 33 (26.4%) (P value = 0.001). On a closer examination among age, type of diabetes, duration of diabetes, and insulin injections; only the duration of having diabetes was significantly associated with depression as one of the mental health variables. Conclusions: This study showed that anxiety and depression are significantly more common among diabetic patients in comparison to the control group in the city of Qazvin; therefore, it is necessary to develop primary care by a system based on the reaction, so that an effective treatment for mental health would take place and, ultimately, the impact of these interventions should be studied. Keywords: Mental Health; Anxiety; Depression; Diabetes