Abstract
Dialysis patients not only experience disorders of social activities, but also have a variety of physical symptoms. Therefore, these patients are prone to develop anxiety/depressive state. For this reason, health professionals are encouraged to detectearly signs of depression in dialysis patients. Thus, we investigated the mental status in 61 patients receiving dialysis therapy in our department between December 2007 and March 2008, using the General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28). Subsequently, an assessment was performed by psychiatric specialists to determine whether the subjects could be classified as having major depressive disorder using the DSM-IV-TR criteria of the American Psychiatric Association. The total scores and the scores of factor A (somatic symptoms), B (anxiety and insomnia) and D (depression) in the subjects were higher than those of healthy individuals. Applicable subjects to major depressive disorder were 24.6%, showing same level as in the USA, and it greatly exceeded 1.2%, which is the prevalence in the general population in urban areas of Japan. The points for both the total scores and the scores of each factor of GHQ-28 were higher in the group with depression than in the group without depression, and appropriate cut-off values to screen for depression were 8 points for the total scores of GHQ-28 and 1 point for factor D. In conclusion, GHQ-28 would be useful to screen for major depressive disorder among dialysis patients.
