Assessment of Anxiety, Depression and serum cortisol levels in oral submucous fibrosis and leukoplakia patients

Abstract

Background: Modern hectic lifestyle caused stressed and get addicted to various harmful habits such as smoking, gutka chewing, tobacco chewing etc, resultant so many oral lesions and severity of these lesions depended on increases with frequency of chewing tobacco, arecanut, smoking etc. Cortisol is a “stress hormone” and has been used as an indicator in stress evaluation in various studies. There is good evidence of many studies where stress and anxiety are related to increase resting levels of cortisol. Anxiety and Depression are psychological behaviours associated with stress, As stress increases there is increase in the frequency of deleterious habits and increase in the serum cortisol level. Objective: to assess and co-relate the anxiety, depression and serum cortisol levels in habit associated oral lesions like Oral Submucous Fibrosis and Leukoplakia and compare with that of healthy subjects. Material and Methods: Total of 90 subjects was included in the study who were divided into different groups, GROUP I (OSMF), GROUP II (Leukoplakia) and GROUP III (Control group). All the patients were assessed for serum cortisol level, severity of anxiety and
depression by (HAM‑ A) questionnaire and (HAM‑ D) questionnaire respectively. Results: A significant co-relation was seen between serum cortisol level, anxiety level and depression level in OSMF patient and leukoplakia patients when compared with the control
group. Conclusion: A strong co-relation exists between of serum cortisol level, anxiety level and depression level in patients with habit oriented diseases. Assessing anxiety and depression in patients with OSMF and leukoplakia and comparing with the serum cortisol level may reveal the level of stress.