Prevalence and psychopathological characteristics of depression in consecutive otorhinolaryngologic inpatients

One-hundred inpatients of the otorhinolaryngologic department of a German university hospital participated voluntarily (age M = 38.8 years, SD = 13.9; 38.0% female). Depression was assessed using a clinical interview in which the International Diagnostic Checklist for depression (IDCL) was applied. Patients completed the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) which constitutes three composite scores and nine symptom scales and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Multivariate analyses of variance, correlations and effect sizes were conducted.A prevalence of depression of 21.0% was determined, 38.0% of the depressed patients were female. Depressed patients showed higher scores on the BSI-scales "interpersonal sensitivity", "depression", "anxiety", "phobic anxiety" and "psychoticism" with medium effect sizes.High prevalence of depression was found which is in accordance with results of prior studies. Depressed patients showed higher psychological distress as compared to non-depressed patients. The results call for carrying on in engaging in depression research and routine depression screening in ORL.Depressive disorders are among the most prevalent mental disorders of our times [1,2], coinciding with increased symptom burden, functional impairment, and immense socio-economical costs. Prevalence was found to be especially high in populations of patients with physical diseases [3-6]. Furthermore, depression may affect the course of comorbid physical illnesses and worsen their outcomes [5]. In general, depression reduces functional, emotional, cognitive and physical capacities needed to recover from coexisting somatic diseases.Concerning depression in otorhinolaryngologic (ORL) diseases, prior studies mostly report high prevalences. Values range from 10% to 26% [7-11] indicating that patients with ORL are at high risk for depression. This is not surprising considering that characteristics of ORL diseases may entail severe consequences on subjective functioning and everyday qualit