Predisposition to the development of depressive states in patients with M/XDR TB

The <b>purpose</b> of our study was to evaluate the degree of severity of neuro-psychiatric disorders in patients with M/XDR TB. <b>Materials and Methods:</b> As a result of the survey, 260 patients were firstly diagnosed with pulmonary TB (n=140 with susceptible TB and n = 120 had M/XDR TB).The presence and degree of depression was determined according to the Beck Depression Scale, depend in goon the amount of points for the answers given by patients during the survey, history of the disease in these groups of patients, and then we conducted a statistical analysis of the data. <b>Results:</b> According to the Beckscale, 114(81.4%) patients with firstly diagnosed susceptible TB demonstrated the absence of depressive symptoms, 14(10.0%) patients had mild, 6(4.3%) patients had pronounced, 3(2.1%) patients had moderate and 3(2.1%) patients had severe depression. In patients with M/XDR TB, we observed that only 14(11.7%) showed no depressive symptoms (p&lt;0.001), 28(23.3%) - mild (p=0.003), 19(15.8%) - moderate, (p=0.001), 32(26.7%)- pronounced (p&lt;0.001) and 27(22.5%) had severe (p&lt;0.001) depressive condition. <b>Conclusions:</b> Patients with M/XDR TB have a significantly higher degree of depression in the studied population than patients with firstly diagnosed susceptible TB. This may be due to the fact that in patients with M/XDR TB there are more factors influencing the development of a depressive state, such as pronounced intoxication, predisposition to progress of specific TB process, longer period of chemotherapy, pronounced patient’s immune system disorders, but further studies are required to determine the risk factors and the influence the depression can show on the TB course and treatment results.