Depression and anxiety in Hodgkin lymphoma patients: A Danish nationwide cohort study of 945 patients

Cancer‐related psychological distress may lead to depression and anxiety among survivors. The vast majority of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) become long‐term survivors, but the risk of mental health problems after HL is not well‐characterized. Using national population‐based registries, we investigated the cumulative incidence of psychotropic drug (antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anxiolytics) use (proxies for depression and anxiety) in HL patients as well as if an increased risk would normalize over time for patients in remission. The study included 945 HL patients aged 18‐92 years and 4725 matched persons. In total, 215 HL patients (22.8%) received a prescription of any psychotropic drug (PD) at some point after date of diagnosis compared to 545 persons (11.5%) in the matched cohort. Cumulative incidences with death/relapse as competing risk confirmed that HL patients were at higher risk of receiving psychotropic drug prescriptions, but the increased risk was transient and normalized to the matched population 5 years into survivorship. Increased age, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status, and disease stage were associated with higher risk of psychotropic drug prescriptions. Given the increased rate of psychotropic drug prescriptions after HL diagnosis, screening for symptoms of depression and anxiety is warranted after HL diagnosis and first years into survivorship. In this Danish nationwide cohort study of 945 Hodgkin lymphoma patients, we investigated the risk of anxiety and depression following diagnosis, using psychotropic drug prescriptions as proxy for anxiety and depression. Our findings showed that Hodgkin lymphoma patients had higher 5‐year cumulative incidence of receiving a prescription for a psychotropic drug (21.5%) as compared to a matched background population (8.4%).