Anxiety and Depression in Facial Injuries: A Comparative Study

BACKGROUND: This study was performed to identify the presence of anxiety and depression in patients who had sustained facial injuries; additionally we aimed to identify other variables that may modify the psychological response to trauma that include gender and age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The participants were 153 patients from multimodal trauma centers in Bangalore city who sustained disfiguring facial injuries were taken up. Of the 153 patients, 81 patients were male (51 less than 50 years of age and 30 more than 50 years of age) and 72 patients were female (40 less than 50 years of age and 32 more than 50 years of age) and 111 patients with non-disfiguring facial injuries out of which 54 were male patients and 57 were female patients. The assessments were carried out at 3 time intervals (the date of discharge [DOD], 1-month post-operatively and 6 months post-operatively) of the follow-up. The hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) was used to assess the anxiety and depression of the facial trauma patients. RESULTS: Statistically significant higher means of HADS both for anxiety and depression were present in patients with disfiguring facial injuries compared to non-disfiguring facial injuries, female patients compared to male patients after the 1-month and 6 months post-operatively, the mean anxiety and depression scores of males and female patients were significantly higher for those who aged less than 50 years compared to those who aged more than 50 years. CONCLUSION: The results of this study led to the conclusion that in comparison with patients who had facial disfiguring injuries and non-disfiguring facial injuries, the mean HADS scores were significantly higher in the disfiguring facial injury patient. This indicates increased Anxiety and Depression levels and this was observed at all three study intervals (DOD, 1-month and 6 months post-operatively). The HADS was higher in female patients who were lesser than 50 years age compared to male patients of the same age group, which implies higher anxiety and depression levels.