Does Surgical Treatment Affect the Degree of Anxiety or Depression in Patients With Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy?

STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. OBJECTIVES: Preoperative mental state has been reported as one of the factors affecting the surgical outcomes of spine surgery, but few studies have examined in detail how patients' mental state is affected by spine surgery. The purpose of this study was to investigate using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) whether surgery improves preoperative depression and anxiety in patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy. METHODS: We investigated patient-reported outcomes (Mental Component Summary, Physical Component Summary of SF-12 Health Survey, and EQ-5D, Neck Disability Index, JOACMEQ, satisfaction with treatment) and HADS one year after surgery, comparing them before and after surgery between April 2017 and February 2020. Among the cases diagnosed as preoperative anxiety and depression, we additionally compared the patient-reported outcomes based on the presence or absence of postoperative improvement in mental state, having also investigated the correlation between patient-reported outcomes and HADS for sub-analysis. RESULTS: Among the 99 patients eligible for inclusion in the present study, we found that patient-reported outcomes and the HADS scores improved significantly after surgery. There was a moderate correlation between the amount of change in HADS-D score before and after surgery and the amount of change in NDI (moderate, r = .41), NRS of neck (moderate, r = .46), and JOACMEQ (cervical spine function; moderate, r = .43, upper extremity function; moderate, r = .41, QOL; moderate, r = .41). CONCLUSIONS: We found that surgical treatment for patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy may improve postoperative anxiety and depression as well as other patient-reported outcomes.