Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Prognostic Value of Anxiety and Depression in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Limited studies report anxiety and depression prevalence and their correlations with prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Even worse, their risk factors for AML remained unclear. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence, risk factors, and prognostic value of anxiety and depression in AML patients.

Totally, 132 de novo AML patients, 60 non-malignant hematological disease patients (as disease controls), and 60 healthy controls were enrolled. Anxiety and depression status were evaluated by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in all participants.

HADS-anxiety score (8.2 ± 3.2 vs. 6.1 ± 2.9 vs. 4.7 ± 2.8), anxiety rate (48.5% vs. 25.0% vs. 10.0%), HADS-depression score (7.8 ± 3.0 vs. 5.8 ± 3.0 vs. 4.0 ± 2.8), and depression rate (43.2% vs. 23.3% vs. 8.3%) were highest in AML patients, followed by disease controls, and the lowest in healthy controls (all p < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified that factors independently associated with anxiety included male (p = 0.002, odds ratio [OR] = 0.240), smoking (p = 0.043, OR = 2.474), education duration (p = 0.024, OR = 0.889), and NCCN high-risk stratification (p = 0.008, OR = 2.347), while those independently associated with depression were age (p = 0.005, OR = 1.055), single/divorced/widowed status (p = 0.014, OR = 3.149), NCCN high-risk stratification (p = 0.002, OR = 3.077), and white blood cell (WBC) (p < 0.001, OR = 1.062). Additionally, depression was correlated with shorter accumulating event-free survival (p = 0.012) and overall survival (p = 0.041) in AML patients, whereas anxiety was not.

Anxiety and depression are prevalent, among which depression is associated with poor survival profile, but anxiety is not; moreover, age, male, education, single/divorced/widowed status, smoking, NCCN high-risk stratification, and WBC were independent related factors of anxiety and depression in AML patients.