Prevalence of Depression in Patients with Osteoarthritis and Its Relationship with Associated Pain and Physical Disability– A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Based Study

Aims and Objectives: This study was aimed at establishing a correlation between disease activity (Total WOMAC Score), pain (VAS-during interview, WOMAC Pain-while doing activities), stiffness (WOMAC Stiffness Score), disability (WOMAC Disability Score), duration of disease (caused due to osteoarthritis) to prevalence of comorbid depression (BDI).

Methodology: This is a descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire-based study on 151 participants with osteoarthritis. The study was conducted in the Government Wenlock Hospital, Mangalore, Karnataka, India from 17th May to 29th September 2018. The WOMAC (Western Ontario and Macmaster Universities Arthritis Index) was used to assess symptoms for the past 48hrs and the VAS (Visual Analogue Scale) was used to measure pain intensity. Becks Depression Inventory (BDI) scale is used to measure depression.

Results: In this study it was found that depression was highly prevalent among osteoarthritis patients. 73.83% of participants were found to have moderate depression. Pain experienced during interview due to osteoarthritis (as measured by VAS) had very high statistical correlation with depression. Pain experienced due to osteoarthritis while performing certain daily activities (as measured by pain section of WOMAC) had significant statistical correlation with depression (p=0.028).

Conclusion: The study concluded that pain caused due to osteoarthritis has significant correlation with comorbid depression. Duration of disease and duration of treatment though was not significantly correlated with depression. Physical disability caused by osteoarthritis is also not significantly correlated to depression.