Mood and anxiety disorders in women with treated hyperthyroidism and ophthalmopathy caused by Graves' disease
Received 31 May 2004; accepted 28 October 2004.
Abstract
Objective
To evaluate the prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in women with treated hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease and to compare them with the prevalence of such findings in women without past or present thyroid disease.
Methods
Thirty inpatient women with treated hyperthyroidism and ophthalmopathy caused by Graves' disease and 45 women hospitalized for treatment of gynecologic disorders such as abnormal vaginal bleeding, benign tumors or infertility were evaluated for the prevalence of mood and anxiety diagnoses using a standard Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and for mood and anxiety ratings using the Profile of Mood States (POMS). At the time of assessment, it was discovered that 14 of 30 women with treated hyperthyroidism caused by Graves' disease were still hyperthyroid, while 16 women were euthyroid.
Results
Significantly greater prevalence of social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression and total mood and anxiety disorders, as well as higher symptom scores on the POMS, was found in hyperthyroid women with Graves' disease in comparison with the control group. A prevalence of total anxiety disorder, as well as history of mania or hypomania and lifetime bipolar disorder, but not lifetime unipolar depression, was more frequent in both the euthyroid and the hyperthyroid subgroups of study women in comparison with the control group.
Conclusions
These results confirm a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders in women with treated hyperthyroidism and ophthalmopathy caused by Graves' disease. Hyperthyroidism plays a major role in psychiatric morbidity in Graves' disease.
aDepartment of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7160, USA
bInstitute of Endocrinology, Kaunas Univeristy of Medicine, Kaunas, Kaunas, LT-50009, Lithuania
Corresponding author. Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7160, USA. Tel.: +1 919 843 3091; fax: +1 919 966 4180.
ABSTRACT