Mental Health, Quality of Life, and Stigmatization in Danish Patients with Liver Disease

Nadja Østberg, Birgitte Gade Jacobsen, Mette Munk Lauridsen and Lea Ladegaard Grønkjær ()
Additional contact information
Nadja Østberg: Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark
Birgitte Gade Jacobsen: Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark
Mette Munk Lauridsen: Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark
Lea Ladegaard Grønkjær: Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital of Southern Denmark, 6700 Esbjerg, Denmark

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: The mental health of patients with liver diseases is often overlooked when assessing their overall health and planning care and treatment. The aim of this study was to assess anxiety, depression, hopelessness, quality of life, and the perception of stigmatization in a large cohort of patients with chronic liver disease of different aetiology and severity, as well as to identify predictors associated with mental health disorders. A total of 340 patients completed a survey assessing mental health using the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Hopelessness Scale, and the Major Depression Inventory. Quality of life was measured with the Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire and the European Quality-of-Life visual analogue scale. To assess stigmatization, validated questions from the Danish Nationwide Survey of Patient Experiences were used. Predictors associated with anxiety, hopelessness, and depression were analysed using univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses. Overall, 15% of the patients had moderate or severe anxiety, 3% had moderate or pronounced hopelessness, and 8% had moderate or severe depression. The prevalence of all three was highest in patients with cirrhosis and was associated with a low quality of life. More patients with cirrhosis had perceived stigmatization compared to patients with liver disease without cirrhosis, which affected their self-perception, and more than one-third of the patients refrained from telling others about their liver disease. The results emphasize the need for increased focus on mental health problems and awareness on preventing the discrimination of patients with liver disease.

Keywords: anxiety; depression; cirrhosis; hopelessness; liver disease; mental health; stigmatization; quality of life (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/8/5497/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/8/5497/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:8:p:5497-:d:1122431

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().