Objective: To investigate the impact of anxiety-depression symptoms on the healing of burn wounds and the serum tumor necrosis factor a (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the patients with moderate and severe burns.
Methods: The patients with moderate and severe burns were divided into anxiety-depression group (24 patients) and non-anxiety-depression group (27 patients)according to the scores of anxiety-depression scores three days after burn measured by Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) and Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAMA). The routine therapy was applied for both groups for 30 days. Then the scores of anxiety and depression and the degrees of wound healing were examined. The serum TNF-alpha IL-6 were measured with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).
Results: No significant decrease of the scores of depression was found before and after treatments in the anxiety-depression group (P > 0.05). The days that were needed for healing the wounds and the serum TNF-alpha and IL-6 increased in the patients with depression compared with the control group (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: There are anxious and depressive reactions to burns by the patients. The continuous negative emotion can induce the increase of serum TNF-alpha and IL-6 and lead to delay of the healing of the burn wounds.