Anxiety disorder is the one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders in the elderly. However, there were no sufficient studies on the anxiety disorder in late life. Geriatric anxiety disorders are under-diagnosed and under-treated. For the proper evaluation and diagnosis of anxiety disorder in the elderly, comprehensive approaches considering medical, psycho-social aspects are needed. Various treatment modalities including pharmacotherapy and psycho-social treatments were reported. In this article, the author reviewed the general features of geriatric anxiety disorders, epidemiological characteristics, clinical features of each anxiety disorders, and treatment issues. We need more systematized studies for the advances on the diagnosis and treatment of geriatric anxiety disorders.
Aged ; Anxiety Disorders* ; Anxiety* ; Diagnosis ; Drug Therapy ; Humans

PURPOSE: This study is aimed at identifying the effects of telephone counseling as nursing support on distress, anxiety, depression, and adverse events in cancer patients undergoing their first chemotherapy. METHODS: This was a randomized controlled trial (pretest-posttest design). A total of 70 patients who showed 4 or higher distress scores were selected from the screening process. Four patients dropped out; therefore, 66 patients participated in this research. Thirty-two and 34 patients were randomly assigned to the experimental and the control group, respectively. After a preliminary survey, telephone counseling support was given to the experimental group at three time points. The post survey was done before the second cycle of chemotherapy. RESULTS: Regarding distress, both groups showed a statistically significant decrease in the scores: 3.4 for the experimental group and 1.8 for the control group (p=.002). Furthermore, the experimental group demonstrated a statistically significant decrease relative to the control group. Anxiety and depression showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups. CONCLUSION: This study concludes that nursing support through phone counseling is effective in decreasing distress in patients undergoing chemotherapy for the first time.
Anxiety* ; Counseling* ; Depression* ; Drug Therapy* ; Humans ; Mass Screening ; Nursing ; Telephone*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of self-efficacy promoting program on self-efficacy, self-care, and anxiety in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. METHOD: A quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group pre and post design was used. Subjects were 52 cancer patients who received chemotherapy in a hospital. Twenty-six patients were assigned to the experimental and the control groups, respectively. For the experimental group, the CD image for fifteen minutes and two consultations for about ten minutes each were applied. For the control group, ordinary hospital care was applied. The data was collected before and 2 weeks after chemotherapy. RESULT: The scores of self-efficacy and self-care of the experimental group was higher than those of the control group while the state of anxiety of the experimental group was not lower than that of the control group at posttest. CONCLUSION: The self-efficacy promoting program about prevention of infection and hemorrhage increased cancer patients' self-efficacy and self-care but did not decrease anxiety. Further study is needed to find other factors to decrease anxiety and nurses need to consider the concept of self-efficacy in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy when they plan to increase cancer patients' self-care.
Anxiety* ; Drug Therapy ; Hemorrhage ; Humans ; Referral and Consultation ; Self Care*

PURPOSE: This study was to investigate relationships among distress, depression, anxiety, and spiritual needs of hospitalized patients with stomach cancer. METHODS: The participants were 120 in-patients with stomach cancer for surgery or chemotherapy at C University in Seoul from December 2010 to February 2011. To measure emotional and spiritual states was used Distress management version 1 (National Comprehensive Cancer Network, NCCN), the Hospital anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and the Spiritual Needs Scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS 19.0, specifically descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Scheffe's test, and Pearson's correlation coefficients. RESULTS: Distress showed positive correlations with anxiety (r=.49, p<.001), and depression (r=.44, p<.001). Anxiety showed positive correlations with depression (r=.59, p<.001). While, depression showed negative correlations with spiritual needs (r=-.25, p<.001). CONCLUSION: This study's findings show that hospitalized patients with stomach cancer experienced distress, anxiety, depression and high spiritual needs. Distress, anxiety, and depression of patients with stomach cancer were positively correlated with each other. While the level of depression was negatively correlated with the level of spiritual needs, indicating the higher the level of depression, the lower the spiritual needs. Therefore, nursing interventions for emotional and spiritual support need to be developed for stomach cancer patients.
Anxiety* ; Depression* ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Nursing ; Seoul ; Spirituality ; Stomach Neoplasms*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to describe the pattern of changes on the score of nausea/vomiting and anxiety during one cycle of chemotherapy. METHOD: A total of 53 subjects who were admitted to C University Hospital for a period of 3 days and 2 nights for chemotherapy were selected from February to April, 2003. Total scores of nausea/vomiting were measured twice a day 3 days for a total of 6 measurements. Anxiety, anorexia, and fatigue were also measured at the first and last measurement points. Data were analyzed by one-way repeated measures, ANOVA, t-test, paired t-test, & Pearson's correlation. RESULT: The score of nausea/vomiting increased over time except for the 4th measurement point but no changes were significant over time. There were the significant differences between 1st and 2nd, and 2nd and 3rd nausea/vomiting score at p < 0.05. The scores of anxiety, anorexia, and fatigue between the first and 6th points were significantly different(t=-5.69, p=.001; t=6.25, p=.0001; t=3.65, p=.0007). CONCLUSION: Further studies are needed to identify the relationship between anxiety, and anticipatory and acute nausea/vomiting respectively.
Anorexia ; Anxiety* ; Drug Therapy* ; Fatigue ; Humans ; Nausea ; Vomiting

PURPOSE: This study was examined to identify the relationship between mood state, interaction anxiety, and quality of life of cancer patients with chemotherapy-induced alopecia. METHODS: The participants were 115 cancer patients. Data were collected from August to December 2012, and analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation coefficients, t-test, ANOVA and Duncan's multiple test. RESULTS: The mean scores of mood state (119.17+/-35.94), interaction anxiety (45.57+/-11.73), and global health status (38.08+/-22.45), functional scales (45.41+/-20.98), symptom scales (57.96+/-18.28) in quality of life were moderate or below. Negative correlations were found between mood state and quality of life, interaction anxiety and quality of life, but positive correlation were found between mood state and interaction anxiety. CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that mood state and interaction anxiety are important factors to improve quality of life of cancer patients with chemotherapy-induced alopecia, And it is meaningful in that this study prepared basic data for development of nursing intervention programs for effective management of chemotherapy-induced alopecia.
Alopecia* ; Anxiety* ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Nursing ; Quality of Life* ; Weights and Measures

To provide a recent knowledge about pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders in elderly, the author reviewed the articles and books for the treatment of elderly anxiety patients. Anxiety is the one of the most prevalent psychiatric symptoms in the elderly. Many psychological and physical causes including used drugs can induce the anxiety symptoms in elderly. However, it is often unrecognized and inadequately treated. The pharcokinetics and pharmacodynamic changes, con-comittent illnesses, compliance problems, and increased sensitivity to drugs in elderly have to be considered. Various pharmacological treatments (e.g benzodiazepines, buspirone, antidepressnats, beta-blockers, antihistamines, neuroleptics)were reported as having therapeutic effects for the treatment of geriatric anxiety disorders patients. They have their own advantages and disadvantages. However, anxiety in elderly have received little focus to date. The study results often depend on the studies from adult samples. A comprehensive, flexible, integrated, and specific treatment approaches should be applied to elderly anxious patients. The more systematized studies are needed to broaden the knowledge of the pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders in the elderly.
Adult ; Aged* ; Anxiety ; Anxiety Disorders ; Benzodiazepines ; Buspirone ; Compliance ; Drug Therapy* ; Histamine Antagonists ; Humans

Anxiety disorders are common psychiatric illnesses in the elderly. However, anxiety disorders in older people have not drawn much attention from researchers and clinicians alike, compared with late-life depression or dementia. The author searched for articles published from 1986 to 2006 using the key words including "anxiety", "elderly", "aged", and "pharmacological" therapy in the MEDLINE, PsychINFO, and KMbase in order to clarify effective pharmacological therapy in the elderly with anxiety disorders. Well designed studies for pharmacologic intervention in late-life anxiety disorders were rarely found. Nonetheless, studies on young adults demonstrated a number of pharmacological treatment options that can be applied to these patients. Pharmacologic treatments for the elderly include therapies using antideprssants, especially SSRI or SNRI, buspirone, or benzodiazepines. The latter requires special caution in the administration in the elderly because it can lead to adverse events. Therefore, well designed clinical trials are further needed to obtain optimal pharmacological intervention for the elderly with anxiety disorders.
Aged ; Anxiety Disorders* ; Anxiety* ; Benzodiazepines ; Buspirone ; Dementia ; Depression ; Drug Therapy* ; Humans ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo observe the differences in the clinical efficacy on menopausal irritability between acupuncture and medication.

METHODSSixty cases of menopausal irritability were randomized into an acupuncture group (31 cases) and a medication group (29 cases). In the acupuncture group, the warming needling manipulation was applied at the key acupoints such as Hegu (LI 4) and Taichong (LR 3), once a day, 10 treatments made one session. Totally, 2 sessions were required. In the medication group, 2.5 mg diazepam tablets were prescribed, three times a day, for 23 days totally. The clinical efficacy, the modified Kupperman score and self-rated health measurement scale (SRHMS) were compared before and after treatment in the two groups. RESULTS The total effective rate was 87. 1% (27/31) in the acupuncture group and 82.8% (24/29) in the medication group. The difference in the clinical efficacy was not significant between the two groups (P > 0.05). The modified Kupperman score and SRHMS score were both reduced obviously after treatment in the two groups, indicating the significant difference (all P < 0.05). The reduction of two scores in the acupuncture group was more obvious than those in the medication group (Kupperman: 15.23 +/- 6.19 vs 18.45 +/- 5.37; SRHMS: 116.29 +/- 38.24 vs 140.34 +/- 42.15, both P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe acupuncture and medication are effective in the treatment of menopausal irritability, but the efficacy of warming needling manipulation is better than that of diazepam tablets.

Acupuncture Therapy ; Adult ; Anti-Anxiety Agents ; administration & dosage ; Anxiety ; drug therapy ; psychology ; therapy ; Diazepam ; administration & dosage ; Female ; Humans ; Menopause ; drug effects ; psychology ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome

OBJECTIVE: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) shows relatively delayed responses to pharmacotherapy when compared to other anxiety disorders. Therefore, more effective early therapeutic decisions can be made if the therapeutic response is predictable as early as possible. We studied whether the therapeutic response at 12 weeks is predictable based on the early improvement with escitalopram at 1 week. METHODS: The subjects were 28 outpatients diagnosed with SAD. The subjects took 10-20 mg/day of escitalopram. The results of the Liebowitz social anxiety scale (LSAS), Hamilton anxiety rating scale, and Montgomery-Asberg depression rating scale were evaluated at 0, 1, 4, 8, and 12 weeks of treatment. Early improvement was defined as a ≥10% reduction in the LSAS total at 1 week of treatment, and endpoint response was defined as a ≥35% reduction in the LSAS total score. The correlation between clinical characteristics and therapeutic responses was analyzed by simple linear regression. The correlation between early improvement responses and endpoint responses was analyzed by multivariate logistic regression analysis and receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS: When we adjusted the influence of a ≥35% reduction in the LSAS total endpoint score on a ≥10% reduction of the LSAS total score at 1 week of treatment for the patients' age, the early improvement group at 1 week of treatment was expected to show stronger endpoint responses compared to the group with no early improvement. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that a ≥10% reduction in the LSAS total score in a week can predict endpoint treatment response.
Anxiety Disorders* ; Anxiety* ; Citalopram* ; Depression ; Drug Therapy ; Humans ; Linear Models ; Logistic Models ; Outpatients ; Phobic Disorders ; ROC Curve