Depression Following Hysterectomy and the Influencing Factors

BACKGROUND: Hysterectomy is one of the most common gynecological surgeries performed worldwide. However, women undergoing this surgery often experience negative emotional reactions. OBJECTIVES: This study was done with the aim of investigating the relationship between hysterectomy and postoperative depression, three months after the procedure. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This longitudinal study was conducted in the province of Khorasan-Razavi in Iran, using multistage sampling. At first, three cities were selected from the province by cluster sampling; then, five hospitals were randomly selected from these cities. The participants included 53 women who were hysterectomy candidates in one of the five selected hospitals. The participants’ demographics and hysterectomy procedure information were entered into two separate questionnaires, and the Beck depression inventory (BDI) was employed to measure their severity of depression before and three months after the surgery. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) version 16 was used for the statistical analysis, and a P value of < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS: The means and standard deviations of the participants’ depression scores before and three months after their hysterectomies were 13.01 ± 10.1 and 11.02 ± 10.3, respectively. Although the mean score of depression decreased three months after the hysterectomy, the difference was not statistically significant. However, a significant relationship was found between the satisfaction with the outcome of the hysterectomy and the postoperative depression score (P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: In this study, undergoing a hysterectomy did not show a relationship with postoperative depression three months after the surgery. Moreover, the only factor related to depression following a hysterectomy was satisfaction with the surgery.