Chronic Prostatitis Patients With Psychological Problems And Related Factors

OBJECTIVE: Men,especially young men with chronic prostatitis arefrequently seen in urological practice and are difficult to treat with standardantimicrobial medications.Apart from the rare cases of bacterial prostatitis,numerous somatic models have failed to completely explain pathogeneticinterrelations;therapeutic attempts frequently have produced unsatisfactoryresults.Additionally, psychological factors have often been neglected. A numberof personality variables have turned out to play an important role inquestionnaire-based studies, namely somatization and depression, as well asanxiety, hypochondriasis, and weak masculine identity.Recently,more and morestudies were performed for the causes of chronic prostatitis.Psychologicalfactors have been considered to play an important role in the onset, the courseof disease, and prognosis of the chronic prostatitis. Earlier studies were oftenbased on a psychoanalytical perspective and seldom used quantitativeapproaches.The study in our country was often compared the datas withnational common models and seldom compared with the datas of the heathymen. This study is to analyze the psychological problems and related factors ofpatients with chronic prostatitis quantitatively in order to find out the effect ofpsychological factors on chronic prostatitis. METHODS: The study group of72 patients with chronic prostatitis was compared with the control group of 72men randomly selected without any chronic pain condition. All cases wereassessed by SCL-90, SAS, SDS. And their ages, education, the course ofdisease,sexual problems and their satisfaction with life were also studiedthrough the self-made questionnaires.RESULTS: The scores in SCL-90, SASand SDS in the study group with chronic prostatitis were significantly higherthan those of the control healthy group (p <0.05). The anxiety rat(e77.78%)andthe depression rate(83.33%)in the study group with chronic prostatitis weresignificantly higher than those of the control healthy group(12.50%,11.11%)respectively (p<0.01). 81.94%patients with chronic prostatitis in the studygroup had secondary sexual functional disorder. There were severe psychologicproblems in patients who were middle-aged, well-educated and who had longcourse of disease, the experience of negative life events, dissatisfaction withmarriage, complex and serious symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Psychologicalproblems exist in all patients with chronic prostatitis.Psychological factors andchronic prostatitis act as the causes and results of each other. Psychologicalproblems, especially depression and anxiety may be closely associated withbody symptoms of chronic prostatitis. Those,complicated relationship problems,disruptions of sexual function, levels of depression, along with failure ofmultiple previous medical treatments in men with chronic prostatitis,indicatethat continued antimicrobial therapy is unlikely to provide the "cure" thesepatients seek. Psychological evaluation, couples' counseling, individualcounseling, and medications for depression all may play a role in acomprehensive approach to these patients.The results indicate a strong need forpsychological support of these patients. This result is similar with the findingsof other studies home and abroad, but this study is performed on the basis ofcomparison with healthy men, which reduces the effect of sex, age, residence,education level, occupation, marital status,etc, which reduces the error,andpromotes the validity of the study.This result may supply a new thinking andmethod for clinical treatment.