The relative influence of patients’ self-reported depressive symptoms of cognitive deficit and cognitive bias on total depression in prostate cancer patients: implications for psychotherapy interventions

Perceptions of the depressive symptoms of cognitive deficit and cognitive bias were investigated in 492 prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Mean patient reports of the depressive symptoms of cognitive deficit were significantly higher than their reports of the depressive symptoms of cognitive bias, and more than six times as many patients had a high score for cognitive deficit as for cognitive bias depressive symptoms. Cognitive deficit symptomatology was a more powerful predictor of total depression score for the entire sample as well as for those patients with more severe depression. Assessment of PCa patients’ depressive status should include differentiation between these two types of depression-related cognitive difficulties so that appropriate psychotherapy treatment decisions might be made.