Untreated Depression, Anxiety Worsen COPD Outcomes: Daily Dose

Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On March 27, 2025, we reported on a study published in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation that reported on the clinical characteristics and disease burden of anxiety and depression among individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The study

Researchers conducted a secondary analysis of the Anxiety and COPD Evaluation, a national observational survey assessing anxiety screening questionnaires in individuals with COPD. They also implemented the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) to identify those participants who could be diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety disorders. The team then compared characteristics of disease burden as measured by questionnaires in COPD patients with and without anxiety and depression.

The findings

Among the 220 participants analyzed:

• 8% met MINI criteria for depression, and 8% for an anxiety disorder.

• Anxiety disorder was further classified as agoraphobia (10 participants), panic disorder (6), PTSD (6), generalized anxiety disorder (4) and social anxiety disorder (3).

• Only 39% of those diagnosed with major depressive disorder were prescribed antidepressants, and just 1 in 5 (22%) were receiving mental health counseling.

• Anxiety was also undertreated, with fewer than half (41%) of affected individuals receiving anxiolytics or counseling (47%).

Authors' comments

"There is a need to understand patient and systems-level barriers to the accurate diagnosis of mood and anxiety disorders in this population, and for effective strategies to manage these conditions as an integral part of comprehensive COPD care."

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