A Comparative Study of Depression, Anxiety and Quality of Life Among Patients with Diabetes and Asthama

The aim of the present study is to compare the levels of depression, anxiety and quality of life among diabetic and asthmatic patients. Asthma and diabetes are chronic conditions and were considered earlier as having a psychosomatic origin. In the past, prominent psychoanalysts such as Menninger (1935) and Dunbar (1936) claimed that diabetes was a part of psychosomatic disease caused by emotional stress. Diabetes like other chronic medical conditions constitutes a source of stress to sufferers and, as such, affects their quality of life (Rubin et al., 1999). Psychiatric morbidity among asthmatics has also been extensively studied worldwide. The purpose of this investigation was to identify psychiatric morbidity among diabetic patients as compared to asthmatics and their QOL. So, this study was planned to assess the presence of anxiety and depression, if any, and to see their effect on the overall quality of life of people with diabetes and asthma. The sample size is 60 in total, where 30 diabetic and 30 asthmatic patients from different medical hospitals of Raipur and Chandigarh has been taken for the study through purposive sampling. The tools used for assessing the variables are Beck depression inventory (BDI), State trait anxiety inventory (STAI), Quality of life (WHOOL-BRIEF). Findings revealed that there is a negative correlation between quality of life, depression and anxiety in both the groups which means that with increase in severity of the level of depression and anxiety there will be poor quality of life but our findings also suggested that there is significant relationship between depression and quality of life where as no such significance has been observed between anxiety and quality of life it may be due to the reason that diabetics had to depend on lifelong medication and regular medical check-up which is not the case with the asthmatics thus it might be the reason for no significant relationship. Both the groups are of equal severity and life threatening. These patients are just taking pharmacological treatment without any awareness regarding their psychiatric co morbidity so; our study can be useful for the implementation and betterment of these groups.