Objectives: To evaluate the psychological adjustment of women during initial genetic ovarian cancer risk assessment and at clinic follow-up, 6-12 months later.
Methods: Sixty-five subjects were assessed with the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD), Spielberger's State Anxiety Inventory, and an 18-item, investigator-designed questionnaire yielding self-report on screening responses, worry about increased risk, identification of cancer-related deaths in relatives, worry about future cancer risks of daughters, alteration of future plans as a result of ovarian cancer risk, etc.
Results: Thirty-three percent of subjects had CESD scores above the established cutoff for depression at baseline and 38% had scores above cutoff at follow-up. Sixteen percent of subjects had state scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory higher than 1 standard deviation above average (norm) at baseline, while only 6% had scores higher than 1 SD above average at follow-up.
Conclusion: To identify factors associated with self-reported depression at follow-up, a series of demographic and self-reported variables (e.g., presence of identified problems in family, impact of genetic risk information, concern for daughter in the future) were entered in a multiple regression analysis with the CESD follow-up score as the dependent variable. Only one predictor accounted for a significant amount of variance in depression scores. Concern for daughter's risk in the future was associated with higher depression scores at follow-up (R = 0.33, P<0.02, R(2) = 11%).
Copyright 1999 Academic Press.