BACKGROUND: Patients receiving home parenteral nutrition (HPN) have a reduced quality of life (QoL), but it is unknown if this is associated with psychiatric comorbidities such as anxiety or depression.
AIM: The aim of this study was to assess anxiety, depression and QoL in patients transitioning from hospital to HPN.
METHODS: We conducted a prospective study in adult patients receiving parenteral nutrition (PN) during transition from hospital to home. We assessed anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; HADS), health-related quality of life (HRQoL; SF-36) and health status (EQ-5D) before discharge and again later at one and three months after HPN was started.
RESULTS: Of the 29 patients, 15 had an underlying malignancy. At baseline, 93% of patients with malignancy had anxiety or depression (HADS A and/or HADS D >7) or both, while of the patients without malignancy, 60% had anxiety, and 40% had depression. Questionnaires were completed by 21 patients at one month and by 15 at three months. Anxiety and depression scores decreased significantly after one month of HPN (mean difference [MD] anxiety: 4.3; 95% CI, 1.2-7.5, P = 0.004; MD depression: 4.0; 95% CI, 1.5-6.5, P = 0.001), and the decrease persisted at three months (MD anxiety: 35; 95% CI, 0.35-6.6, P = 0.02; MD depression: 2.5; 95% CI, 0.06-5.0, P = 0.04). Overall, patients reported an improvement in HRQoL (SF-36) after one month of HPN, and this improvement was maintained at three months in those patients who survived.
CONCLUSION: Home parenteral nutrition is associated with improvements in anxiety, depression and HRQoL at one month and three months after discharge from hospital. The improvements in Qol, anxiety and depression seem greater in patients with underlying malignancy.