Demoralization and depression in pancreatic cancer patients.

Abstract

TPS778 Background: Demoralization is a maladaptive coping response to stressful situations characterized by thoughts of hopelessness, helplessness, and loss of meaning and purpose. Psychometrically, it is measured using the Demoralization-Scale II (DS-II), a validated questionnaire that yields a patient-reported quantification (scale 0-32) of demoralization. Previous studies involving patients with progressive disease have uncovered a strong positive correlation between demoralization and depression, respectively measured by the DS-II and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) surveys. Here, we aim to characterize demoralization and its relationship to depression in pancreatic cancer patients, a unique patient population in terms of its poor prognosis. We hypothesize that demoralization is highly prevalent in the pancreatic cancer patient population and strongly correlated with depression. Methods: Eligible patients with an active pancreatic cancer diagnosis, after consenting to an IRB approved protocol, will be administered the DS-II and PHQ-9 surveys to yield psychometric measurements for analysis. The primary objective of this project is to determine the association between demoralization (DS-II) and depression (PHQ-9) in pancreatic cancer patients. Secondary objectives include associations between demoralization and ethnicity, sexual orientation, suicidal ideation, education, cancer stage, and disease progression. Data will be analyzed via simple linear regression. An ANOVA will also be conducted using DS-II groups as the categorical variable and PHQ-9 scores as the continuous variable, and vice versa. This is a multi-institutional study to be conducted at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, New York University, University of Washington, UC San Francisco, and Lewis Katz Schools of Medicine.