Depression in palliative care patients: a literature review

This literature review aims to identify the prevalence of depression in patients who require palliative care. It is argued that it is possible to differentiate between three categories of depression. These are transitory feelings of sadness, long-term adjustments to loss, and persistent severe depression. This article briefly introduces a number of psychological theories of depression. A Medline search of the literature between 1992 and 1996 using the key words depression and terminal care/palliative care/hospice generated 96 articles. From these, 12 empirical studies on the prevalence of depression in palliative care patients were identified. It was concluded that depression rates ranged from 3% to 69% depending on the measures and diagnostic criteria used. The semi-structured interview was the most common method of assessment, and 75% (9) of studies used a cross-sectional design. Overall, the lack of methodological rigor and the small sample sizes used in these studies means that little is known about which factors are significant for predicting depression in palliative care.