Psychological evaluation of patients with postherpetic neuralgia

IKEDA Tomohito, YOSHIDA Shinji, WATANABE Masashi, TAKASUSUKI Toshifumi, YAMAGUCHI Shigeki

doi:10.11321/jjspc1994.14.401

Pain intensity in patients with postherpetic neuralgia can be influenced by psychological factors; however, there are few reports that studied psychological aspects of patients with postherpetic neuralgia. Therefore we performed a series of four psychological tests, the Cornell Medical Index (CMI), the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS), the Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), and the Yatabe-Guilford Personality Test (YG), in patients with postherpetic neuralgia (n=30). These results were compared with those of healthy younger (n=30) and elderly volunteers (n=30). In the CMI, 43% of the patients revealed neurotic tendencies. They also had hopelessness or anger. In the MAS, 24% of the patients showed anxiety or severe anxiety. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the patients and the younger or elderly volunteers. In the SDS, the scores in the patients and younger and elderly volunteers were 43±7, 31±6, and 34±9, respectively. The mean score in the patients was significant higher than that of younger or elderly volunteers, suggesting that the patients were in a depressive state. In the YG, there was no peculiar personality tendency in the patients. We conclude that the patients with postherpetic neuralgia in our study were neurotic, hopeless, and in anger.

Psychological evaluation of patients with postherpetic neuralgia

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