Influence of psychological intervention on the anxiety and depressive symptoms for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer: a meta-analysis

Objective This study aims to investigate the influence of psychological intervention on the anxiety and depressive symptoms for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer by conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis.Methods Wanfang,CNKI,VIP and CBM databases were searched extensively to identify relevant clinical controlled trials.Data were analyzed by RevMan 5.1.6 and Stata 12.0 softwares.Results were described as Standardized mean difference (SMD) or odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).Results Finally,a total of 6 clinical controlled trials involving 724 nasopharyngeal cancer patients were included in this systematic review,including 361 patients in observation group and 363 patients in control group.Meta-analysis showed that there was no significant difference between two groups in pre-intervention SDS scores (SMD=0.10,95%CI=-0.07~-0.27,P=0.27) and pre-intervention SAS scores (SMD=0.01,95%CI=-0.17~-0.20,P=0.88).However,post-intervention SDS scores (SMD=-1.05,95%CI=-1.56~-0.54,P0.00001) and post-intervention SAS scores (SMD=-1.34,95%CI=-2.18~-0.50,P=0.002) had statistically significant differences.Conclusion The present data suggests that psychological intervention may relieve anxiety and depressive symptoms for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer.Further well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm or adjust current conclusions.