74. Recent stressful events contribute to the development of fatigue and depression in patients receiving Interferon-α treatment

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Interferon-alpha (IFN-α) and ribavirin is the standard treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Unfortunately, this treatment is often associated with onset of major depression and other neuropsychiatric conditions. However, why some patients and not others would develop these adverse effects is still unclear. There is evidence that exposure to psychosocial stressors plays an important role in the development of fatigue and depression. The aim of this study is to investigate if exposure to psychosocial stress predicts the onset of fatigue and depression in patients undergoing IFN-α treatment. The Chalder Fatigue Questionnaire and the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology were administered to 48 HCV patients undergoing IFN-α treatment using a prospective cohort design, at baseline and at treatment weeks 4, 8 and 12. Stressful life events in the 6 months before starting IFN-α treatment were measured with the Brief Life Events questionnaire at baseline. IFN-α caused a significant increase in fatigue and depression in all patients across all time points. Patients with one or more recent stressful events had higher fatigue scores at baseline (14.3 ± 4.2 vs. 11.4 ± 3.8, p = 0.02) and at treatment week 8 (21.6 ± 4.3 vs. 17.7 ± 4.8, p = 0.008), and higher scores of depression at treatment week 4 (26.14 ± 13.99 vs. 17.81 ± 10.64, p = 0.02) when compared with patients without any life event. Our findings show that psychosocial stress could help predicting the onset of fatigue and depression during IFN-α treatment.