Introduction: We evaluated the psychological impact on patients caused by transrectal prostate biopsy and the emotional stress in those with a positive prostate cancer finding.
Methods: We performed a psychological evaluation of 328 men who underwent transrectal prostate biopsy using HADS (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) at 3 time points. In addition we analyzed events related to the procedure, compared anxiety and depression levels in men with a negative result vs those diagnosed with prostate cancer, and evaluated anxiety and depression associated with events related to the procedure.
Results: Of the 328 men 99.08% completed the evaluation, including 51.2% with a biopsy positive for prostate cancer and 48.8% with a negative prostate cancer result. The group with a positive biopsy scored an average of 6.85 in the anxiety category and 3.48 for depressive symptoms with a 2.02 point difference in respect to the original evaluation (p = 0.01). Prostate cancer with prostate specific antigen greater than 20 ng/ml was associated with significant anxiety (p = 0.03).
Conclusions: Biopsy positive for prostate cancer with prostate specific antigen greater than 20 ng/ml is associated with significant anxiety. However, events related to the procedure and marital status are not associated with significant anxiety.
Keywords: anxiety; biopsy; depression; diagnosis; prostatic neoplasms.