Assessment of Mind Health of Endocrine Patients Using a ‘2 Minute MIND HEALTH QUESTIONAIRRE (MHQ)’: A Case Control Study

Objective : Endocrine disorders are associated with impairment in the Psycho Neuro Immune Endocrine (PNIE) axis. Assessing mind health is complex, difficult and not feasible in daily endocrine practice and hence most mind health concerns tend to  be overlooked. More so, psychiatric assessment tools require expertise of tool administration and is time consuming, difficult to comprehend without help and targets psychiatric morbidity rather than mind health of apparently normal endocrine patients. Our pilot study aimed to assess mind health of patients as compared to healthy subjects visiting an endocrine clinic in Pune, India using a self-designed 2- minute MHQ.

Methods:

A 2-minute 10-point, MHQ was designed in collaboration with a team of endocrinologist, psychiatrist, physiologist, oncologist and neurologist. The questions were designed to assess changes in quality of mind health in laymen terms so that they could be answered by volunteer patients and their accompanying normal person without assistance, while they waited in the clinic. SPSS (version 20) for Windows package (SPSS Science, Chicago, IL, USA) was used for statistical analysis.

Results:

438 endocrine patients (343 females and 95 males) and 111(47 females and 64 males) healthy controls completed the MHQ within 1-2 minutes. Results to questions were as follows

Q1: How do you feel today?

Normal controls felt happier than patients (90.1% vs 52.3% P=0.000)

Q2: How is your sleep?

64.9% of normal people and 48.4% patients had good sleep.45% of patients slept less or disturbed as compared to 30% of controls (P=0.022)

Q3: How is your appetite?

73% controls had normal appetite as compared to 67.6% patients. 21.7% patients and 13.5% controls had poor appetite (P=0.375)

 Q4: How do you feel about your life?

Life satisfaction was more in control group (79.3% vs 68.3% P=0.09)

 

Q5: How is your energy level overall?

Energy level was high in 13.5% controls as against 3.9% patients. Low energy was seen in 17.6% patients and 1.8 % healthy controls(P=0.000)

 Q6: Do you feel tired?

41.5 % of patients felt tired always or most of the times as compared to 9 % of controls (P=0.000)

 

Q7: Do you feel mood changes (irritable /angry/sad/ like crying)?

35.1% of patients and 28.8 % of controls (P=0.279) felt some form of mood swing.

 

Q8: How is your sexual life?

Sex life was absent in 40% of patients (all males) as compared to 21.3% controls and was good only in 42.9% patients as compared to 73.1% controls.

 

Q9: How is your work life?

Work life was normal in only 5% patients and 21.7% felt that it was boring. (14.4% and 3.6% in controls P=0.000)

 

Q10: Do you feel that your life is purposeful or meaningful?

47.7% of patients and 56.8% controls felt that their life was purposeful (P=0.379)

Happiness in life was associated with good sleep, high energy, absence of tiredness, happy feeling daily , satisfied sexual, work life and purposeful life in both groups.

 

Discussion/Conclusion:

Mind health of endocrine patients is significantly impaired. This ‘2-minute self-assessed MHQ’ offers an easy and feasible mind health assessment tool in resource and time limited endocrine setup and gives a one glance picture of mind health of the patient, which when addressed, can improve disease outcomes.