Department of Psychology, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia.
Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 3;15(12):e0243357. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243357. eCollection 2020.
Psychological distress is a common problem associated with cancer. The main objective of the present study was to test the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in a sample of Ethiopian cancer patients and to compare the results with those obtained from a sample in Germany. Data were collected from 256 cancer patients who visited the University of Gondar Hospital between January 2019 and June 2019 using the HADS, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30), and the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory MFI-20. The reliability of the HADS was good, with Cronbach's α coefficients of 0.86 (anxiety), 0.85 (depression), and 0.91 (total scale). The Ethiopian cancer patients were more anxious (M = 7.9) and more depressed (M = 9.3) than the German patients (M = 6.8 for anxiety and M = 5.5 for depression). Only a weak level of measurement invariance was detected between the Ethiopian and the German sample. In the Ethiopian sample, anxiety and depression were associated with tumor stage (high levels in stage 4) and treatment (high levels for patients not receiving surgery and chemotherapy). Both anxiety and depression were significantly associated with all of the EORTC QLQ-C30 and MFI-20 scales. The HADS proved to be applicable for use with Ethiopian cancer patients. The high level of anxiety and depression present in that group indicates a need for psychosocial care.
心理困扰是与癌症相关的常见问题。本研究的主要目的是在埃塞俄比亚癌症患者样本中测试医院焦虑和抑郁量表（HADS），并将结果与德国样本进行比较。数据来自 2019 年 1 月至 6 月期间在贡德尔大学医院就诊的 256 名癌症患者，使用 HADS、欧洲癌症研究与治疗组织生活质量问卷（EORTC QLQ-C30）和多维疲劳量表 MFI-20 收集。HADS 的可靠性良好，Cronbach's α 系数为 0.86（焦虑）、0.85（抑郁）和 0.91（总量表）。埃塞俄比亚癌症患者比德国患者更焦虑（M = 7.9）和更抑郁（M = 9.3）。仅在埃塞俄比亚和德国样本之间检测到弱水平的测量不变性。在埃塞俄比亚样本中，焦虑和抑郁与肿瘤分期（第 4 期水平较高）和治疗（未接受手术和化疗的患者水平较高）有关。焦虑和抑郁均与 EORTC QLQ-C30 和 MFI-20 量表的所有指标显著相关。HADS 被证明适用于埃塞俄比亚癌症患者。该组中存在的高焦虑和抑郁水平表明需要进行心理社会护理。
