Depression among hospitalized and non-hospitalized gonadal cancer patients in tertiary care public hospitals in Karachi.

The study aimed at determining the differences in the levels of depression between hospitalized and non-hospitalized Gonadal cancer patients in tertiary care public hospitals in Karachi. The present study was conducted at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Civil Hospital, Karachi, from July to October 2009. One hundred adult patients diagnosed with Gonadal cancer volunteered for the study. Cases with any other co-morbidity were excluded. Urdu version of Siddiqui Shah Depression Scale (SSDS) was administered. Purposive and snowball sampling methods were used for data collection. The ages of participants in the sample ranged from 20 to 27 years with the mean age of 23.85 years. The participants belonged to the lower and middle classes. Out of the 30 hospitalized gonadal cancer patients 40% were moderately depressed and 60% were severely depressed, whereas out of 70 non-hospitalized gonadal cancer patients 74.3% were mildly depressed, 24.3% were moderately depressed and only 1.4% were severely depressed, which clearly indicated that the depression level of hospitalized gonadal cancer patients was high as compared to non-hospitalized gonadal cancer patients.