Cancer-related depression higher in Asian patients

Depression following a diagnosis ofcancer appears to be significantlymore prevalent in British South Asianscompared with Caucasian people inthe UK, according to findings from across-sectional survey carried out at theUniversity of Leicester. The study, published in BMJ Open,compared depressive symptoms among94 British South Asian (BSA) patientswith those seen in 185 British White (BW)patients during the 9 months followingpresentation at a UK cancer centre. A variety of assessment tools, includingThe Hospital Anxiety and DepressionScale (HADS-D), Patient HealthQuestionnaire-9, Emotion Thermometers,Mini-MAC and the newly developedCancer Insight and Denial questionnaire(CIDQ), were used in the evaluation. Significantly higher rates of selfreporteddepressive symptoms wereseen in BSA patients