Cancer and depression: A comparison of cancer victims with the general population, findings from the European Social Survey 2014.

An increasing number of people in Europe are living with cancer, either as an active disease or as a past experience. Depressive symptoms may impair quality of life in cancer patients and may constitute increased risks for disability, as well as being a risk factor for increased mortality. Our study compared self-reported symptoms of depression in people who currently or previously have experienced cancer with self-reported symptoms of depression in the general population. Our study was based on data from the European Social Survey 2014, with representative samples from 19 countries. Depression was measured by an eight-item CES-D Scale, with a cut-point of a mean score of 2 to indicate depression. Multilevel modelling was used to examine the relationship between cancer status and depression. Respondents who at the time of the interview reported to have cancer were more likely to report symptoms above the cut-point on the depression scale than people who never had experienced cancer (unadjusted odds ratio (OR)=2.59; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.20-3.06; and OR=2.00; 95% CI 1.70-2.36). The difference was smaller comparing people who previously had experienced cancer to people who never had experienced cancer (OR=1.46; 95% CI 1.19-1.79; and OR=1.28; 95% CI 1.05-1.55). The differences in depression by cancer status did not vary among the welfare state regimes. .