The relationship between anxiety and depression with breast cancer screening in women referring to the mammography clinics in Kermanshah, 2013-2014

Mammography is the most sensitive and specific test that is requested for early diagnosis of breast cancer. Psychological disorders during mammography can have adverse effects on women and cause that they have not shown much interest in doing mammography. Therefore, the purpose of present study was to determine the relationship between anxiety and depression with breast cancer screening in women referring to the mammography clinic. This descriptive analytical (cross–sectional) study was performed on 275 women referring to some of the mammography clinics of Kermanshah city. The data was collected using a questionnaire consisting of a demographic section and a "Beck" anxiety and depression scale. Data analysis was performed using the software SPSS 20. The meaningless level of tests considered as P<0.05. According to the scores obtained by Beck questionnaire, 20% of subjects had moderate anxiety and 21.8% of them had low depression. There was no statistically significant correlation between the history of doing mammography and anxiety and/or depression in women (P >0.05) and other factors such as age, marital status, residency, education. The occupation of women are the most influential parameters on psychological disorders (P <0.05). The results show that the information transfer, notification about breast diseases and the applications of screening mammography are the most effective methods to reduce anxiety and depression, especially in elderly, married, urbanite, low literacy women, and housewives. Thus, providing adequate information to improve the health of patients referring to the mammography clinic is recommended by the medical team.