Anxiety, Depression, and Quality of Life After Procedural Intervention for Uterine Fibroids

J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2022 Mar;31(3):415-424. doi: 10.1089/jwh.2020.8915. Epub 2021 Jun 8.

Abstract

Background: Quality of life (QOL) and psychological health has been reported to be decreased among women with gynecological conditions such as uterine fibroids (UFs). Materials and Methods: Women enrolled in the Comparing Options for Management: PAtient-centered REsults for Uterine Fibroids (COMPARE-UF) registry, receiving procedural therapy for symptomatic UFs, were eligible for this analysis if they completed a series of health-related QOL surveys administered at three time points (baseline, 6-12 weeks postprocedure, and 1 year postprocedure; n = 1486). Ethical approval for this study was obtained at each recruiting site and the coordinating center (NCT02260752, clinicaltrials.gov). Results: More than 26% (n = 393) of women reported moderate anxiety/depression on the baseline anxiety/depression domain of the Euro-QOL 5-dimension instrument. At both the 6-12 weeks and 1-year postprocedural follow-up, there was significant improvement in the UF QOL symptom severity score (p < 0.001, p < 0.001), the total UF symptom QOL score (p < 0.001, p < 0.001), and the Euro-QOL 5-dimension visual analog scale (p < 0.001, p = 0.004) compared with the preprocedural baseline scores. The reporting of anxiety/depression decreased by 66.4% among women who were at baseline, whereas 5.6% of women previously reporting no anxiety/depression reported anxiety/depression at the 1-year follow-up. Conclusion: UF symptoms were more severe among women reporting anxiety/depression at baseline. At the 1-year follow-up, health-related QOL scores improved among all women and the prevalence of anxiety/depression decreased in most, but not all women, whereas severity of anxiety/depression worsened in a small percentage of women (5.6%). Overall, these results suggest that UF treatment improves symptoms of anxiety/depression associated with symptomatic UFs.

Keywords: ablation; abnormal; bleeding; endometrial; hysterectomy; leiomyoma.

Publication types

  • Clinical Study
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Anxiety / epidemiology
  • Depression / epidemiology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Leiomyoma* / complications
  • Leiomyoma* / epidemiology
  • Leiomyoma* / surgery
  • Quality of Life
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Uterine Neoplasms* / complications
  • Uterine Neoplasms* / epidemiology
  • Uterine Neoplasms* / surgery

Associated data

  • ClinicalTrials.gov/NCT02260752