Occurrence of anxiety and its scores in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients.

Abstract

Objective: To find out the frequency and severity of anxiety in patients presented with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Accident and Emergency Medicine Department, Farooq Hospital, Islamabad. Period: March 2024 to September 2025. Methods: On chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients was diagnosed with COPD using GOLD standard criteria with an age of 40 years and above were screened for anxiety by using Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)-7 criteria. GAD-7 scores were distributed to classify anxiety severity into minimal (0-4), mild (5-9), moderate (10-14), and severe (15-21). Results: Of the 129 COPD patients, male patients were in the majority (82.2%, n=106), and female patients were in minority (17.8%, n=23). The mean age was 67.98±7.01 years. The overall mean GAD-7 score was 8.12±2.88. Anxiety severity was minimal in 3.1% (n=4), mild in 72.9% (n=94), moderate in 20.1% (n=26) and severe in 3.9% (n=5) COPD patients. Anxiety severity was significantly associated with gender (p-value<0.001) and age (p-value=0.006). Conclusion: The frequency of anxiety was high in patients presented with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, with most of the patients suffering from mild anxiety, followed by moderate and severe anxiety.