A study in the July 2024 issue of The Spine Journal examined how patients think about health-related quality of life over 12 months after spine surgery.
Researchers included 173 adult lumbar spine patients and collected data before surgery, three months after surgery and 12 months postoperatively. Patients who had depression and didn't have depression were compared cognitive appraisals.
The results found presurgical and longitudinal differences in cognitive appraisal domains. Patients with depression were less likely than those without depression to focus on the positive and were more likely to focus on the worst moments about their spinal condition. Over time, patients with depression who improved focused more on the positive and balanced the positives and negatives.
The cognitive appraisal explained variances in mental health among those who did and didn't improve at all timepoints, the study said.
The study concluded that the findings "suggest that targeted interventions could be beneficial for addressing mental health concerns during the spine surgery recovery trajectory. These interventions might use appraisal measures to identify patients likely to remain depressed after surgery, and then focus on helping these patients shift their focus and standards of comparison."