Depression and Anxiety in COPD Patients

COPD is an irreversible and unstable disease, and patients experience occasional worsening of symptoms as the disease progresses. The aim of this study was to assess if there are any difference in as needed doses of antianxiety medications between COPD patients who are receiving antidepressants and those who are not.;A retrospective chart review with a three-month duration was used to tally the frequency of PRN antianxiety medications. The number of PRN antianxiety used by COPD patients taking routine antidepressants were 18 while COPD patients taking only PRN antianxiety used 8. Moreover, patients with other respiratory diseases taking routine antidepressants used PRN antianxiety three times.;Based on the results, patients with routine antidepressants use more PRN antianxiety than those patients with only PRN antianxiety. These results are consistent with other studies that there could be an undiagnosed or under diagnosed depression and anxiety in patients with COPD.