Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: Breast cancer is known as the fast enemy that should be treated and destroyed very fast. Various symptoms are frequently reported by patients with cancer during or after treatment. Some of these symptoms are psychological in nature and others are physical in nature. Hence; the present study was conducted for assessing depression among breast cancer patients. Materials & methods: A total of 40 breast cancer patients were enrolled. Only those patients were enrolled in which diagnosis was confirmed on histopathologic examination. Complete demographic and clinical details of all the patients were obtained. Psychiatric history was taken and prevalence of depression among the breast cancer patients was recorded. Hamilton depression rating scale (HAM D) was used for evaluation of depression. Results: Out of 40 breast cancer patients, depression was found to be present in 57.5 percent of the patients. Out of 23 patients with depression, 5 belonged to upper class, 8 belonged to middle class while the remaining 10 belonged to lower class. Significant results were obtained while assessing the correlation of incidence of depression and socio-economic status. Conclusion: Depression is significantly affecting breast cancer patients, patient of low socio-economic status are more affected by depression due to financial deficiencies encountered by them.