Validade da Escala Hospitalar de Ansiedade e Depressão em Pacientes com Dor Crônica* Validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale in Patients with Chronic Pain

SUMMARY Castro MMC, Quarantini L, Batista-Neves S, Kraychete DC, Daltro C,Miranda-Scippa A – Validity of the Hospital Anxiety and DepressionScale in Patients with Chronic Pain. BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Several studies suggest astrong association between anxiety and depression with chronicpain. That can be demonstrated using standard scales to detectthese symptoms. The objective of this study was to determine sen-sibility and specificity of the Hospital Anxiety and DepressionScale (HAD) in patients with chronic pain syndromes followedat the Pain Center of the Hospital Universitario Professor EdgardSantos. METHODS: A transversal, descriptive study was conducted withpatients who sought to the Pain Center between March 2002 andJuly 2003. It was composed of interviews using the HAD Scale andthe M.I.N.I. International Neuropsychiatric Interview BrazilianVersion 5.0.0 (M.I.N.I. PLUS). RESULTS: Ninety-one patients were evaluated. The HAD demons-trated that 61 patients (67%) presented anxiety, while 42 patients(46.2%) presented depression. HAD results showed that amongpatients with depression, 38 (90.5%) also had anxiety; while amongthose with anxiety, 38 (62.3%) also had depression. Statisticalanalysis showed that this association was statistically significant(p < 0.001). M.I.N.I. PLUS revealed an incidence of 40.7% in currentmood changes and 47.3% of anxiety. As for HAD’s sensibility andspecificity, we found the following results: sensibility of 73.3% fordepression and 91.7% for anxiety, and a specificity of 67.2% fordepression and 41.8% for anxiety.