Anxiety and depressive symptoms and missing breast cancer and cervical screening: results from Brazos valley community health survey

ABSTRACT

Breast and cervical cancer screening are associated with dramatically reduced cancer mortality. Mental illnesses have been demonstrated to influence preventative behaviours. This study aims to explore whether anxiety or depressive symptoms is associated with breast and cervical cancer screening. We analyzed data (n = 3104) from the 2013 Brazos Valley Community Health Assessment. The GAD-7 Scale was used to assess the anxiety level, and PHQ-2 was used to assess the depressive symptoms. Stata 15.0 statistical software was used to perform descriptive and logistic regression analysis. Overall, 80.61% of women in each sample met breast cancer or cervical cancer screening guidelines, respectfully. Anxiety was associated with missing breast and cervical cancer screening, but the association was only significant for cervical cancer (OR = 1.430, CI = 1.009, 2.026), not for breast cancer (OR = 1.406, CI = .952, 2.078). Depressive symptom was significantly associated with missing breast (OR = 1.502, CI = 1.051, 2.149) and cervical (OR = 1.689, CI = 1.208, 2.362) cancer screening after controlling for demographics. Women with depressive symptoms and anxiety had higher odds of missing breast and cervical cancer screening. Health promotion programs should consider targeting individuals with anxiety and depression to improve cancer-screening rates..

KEYWORDS:

• Mammography
• Pap test
• anxiety
• depressive symptoms
• cancer screening

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number 1U48 DP001924 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.