Abstract
Purpose:
To investigate the depressive state and the anxiety state in patients with advanced stage of retinitis pigmentosa (RP).
Methods:
Twenty one patients who had advanced stage RP with visual field area smaller than a 10-degree diameter in the Goldmann V-4 target, were evaluated. Twenty-one age- and sex-matched participants without ocular disease were enrolled as control. This study was approved ethics committee of both institutes. Depression and anxiety of the patients were evaluated using the hospital anxiety and depression scale questionnaire (HADS), that consists of the depression (HADS-A) and anxiety (HADS-D) scales. Both scales in RP patients were compared with the control. Relationship between visual acuity in the better eye and the HADS-A and HADS-D scores of RP patients was assessed using linear regression analysis.
Results:
There was no significant difference in the HADS-A score between the RP patients and control (P=0.45), although HADS-D score of the RP patients was significantly higher than the control (P=0.043). There was no significant association between the visual acuity and HADS-A (P=0.87, R=0.04) or HADS-D (P=0.80, R=-0.06) score in the RP patients.
Conclusions:
The depressive state was significantly associated with patients with advanced stage of RP, but the anxiety state was not. This study found that advanced stage of RP can be cause of depression state not depend on visual acuity level.
Keywords: 584 low vision •
688 retina