[Psychologic morbidity in thyroidectomized patients]

To study psychological disorders and personality in a series of patients scheduled to undergo thyroidectomy under general anesthesia. We selected 33 patients who were to undergo thyroidectomy during the second half of 1993. Socio-demographic data were collected and the patients were given the following battery of psychometric tests: Cognitive Mini-Test (CMT), which explores the main cognitive areas; Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28), which is a tool for screening out probable cases of mental illness (mainly involving affective disorders); and Cattell's Personality Questionnaire 16-PF. With the GHQ-28 we detected a 29.6% prevalence of mental illness before surgery; this figure increased to 33.31% after surgery with a cut-off point of 5/6. Some 3.7% of this series of patients presented general cognitive disorders when evaluated with the CMT. One in 3 patients shows signs of significant mental illness and could benefit from some type of psychological or psychopharmacological support, or even psychiatric treatment in the worst cases. We propose that the anesthetist learn to use these simple instruments for psychopathological evaluation in order to detect problems.