The Detection of the Relationship Between Depression and Malnutrition in Cancer Patients

Objective: The disease of cancer and the treatments administered might cause malnutrition and depression in patients. This research aims to assess the risk of depression and malnutrition in cancer patients and analyse the relationship between two diseases. Material and Method: The supplementary research conducted face-to-face interview method with 82 patients who applied to Gaziantep University Şahinbey Research and Application Hospital with cancer diagnosed and Adult Oncology Clinic and Polyclinic between the dates 4 April-4 September 2018 and volunteered to participate in the research. Depression case was assessed with Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) and nutrition cases were assessed with Nutrution Risk Screening (NRS2002). SPSS 17 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) programme was used to anaylse the data. Results: Participants received 28.98±10.10 points on average. According to the scores of the participants, 37.8% percent of them have moderate depression. They received 2.22±0.72 points on average from NRS-2002. It was revelaled that 43.9% percent of the participants had moderate malnutrition. A further analysis (LSD) conducted to detect which depression level the difference resulted from showed that NRS-2002 scores of the participants with severe depression are higher than the ones with moderate mood disorders, clinical depression and moderate depression. According to BDI, the difference between NRS-2002 scores is statistically meaningful. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the NRS-2002 scores of the participants with severe depression are higher than the ones with moderate mood disorders, clinical depression and moderate depression. Conclusion: The problems of oncologic patients related to nutrition and depression should be diagnosed earlier and treated soon.