Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a medical condition which is primarily characterized by airway inflammation and destruction of the pulmonary parenchyma. Besides the well-known physical comorbidities, psychological comorbidities such as anxiety have been found to be also increased in this category of patients. Our main three hypotheses referred to the biochemical markers of COPD (erythrocyte sedimentation rate- ESR, total serum protein and forced expiratory volume in the first second- FEV1) and their power of predicting the level of anxiety in this population. The study was conducted on 150 patients suffering from COPD. Based on their anxiety level, they were distributed in 2 groups: high anxiety and low anxiety. The results showed statistical significant differences between the two experimental groups regarding all three of our dependent variables, validating all of our three hypotheses. More specific, the patients in the high anxiety group had a significantly lower mean of FEV1 compared to low anxiety group (M = 46.01 vs. M = 41.47; p = 0.042). Also, patients from the high anxiety group had a significantly higher mean of total serum proteins compared to low anxiety group (M = 9.2 vs. M = 8.6; p = 0.002). And lastly, patients with high anxiety symptoms had a higher mean of ESR compared to those with low anxiety symptoms (M = 27.54 vs. M = 22.8; p = 0.045). Therefore, these biochemical markers commonly used in the diagnosing of COPD may be also used in predicting the severity of anxiety symptoms in this at risk group of patients.
Highlights
Even if the direct costs of the disease come primarily from physical rather than psychologic morbidity, the presence of psychiatric comorbidities, such as depression and/or anxiety, in patients with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been showed to increase mortality and decrease functional status [2]
In our study we used total serum protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) as inflammation markers. We hypothesized that these two biochemical markers of inflammation will correlate with the FEV1 level, but more importantly, ESR and total serum protein will correlate with the anxiety level of our patients
The main purpose of our study was to discover if the biochemical markers generally used for diagnosing COPD (FEV1, total serum protein and ESR) could predict the level of anxiety of our sample of patients
Summary
Even if the direct costs of the disease come primarily from physical rather than psychologic morbidity, the presence of psychiatric comorbidities, such as depression and/or anxiety, in patients with COPD has been showed to increase mortality and decrease functional status [2]. We hypothesized that these two biochemical markers of inflammation will correlate with the FEV1 level (an expected correlation), but more importantly, ESR and total serum protein will correlate with the anxiety level of our patients. The second hypothesis was about how a biochemical marker of inflammation such as total serum proteins level might by associated with a high or a low level of anxiety.
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