Restless leg syndrome: a risk factor of higher prevalence of anxiety and depression in Parkinson's disease patients.

Background: Many studies have assessed the relationship of depression and anxiety with Parkinson's disease (PD), as well as examining restless leg syndrome (RLS) with depression and anxiety. Nonetheless, there has not been an extensive effort to show how the prevalence of RLS affects both depression and anxiety in PD patients. The objective of this study was to examine how the prevalence of RLS in PD patients affects the prevalence and severity of depression and anxiety and how they compare with each other. This study is the first of its kind that examines the effects of the combination of the two neurological conditions with depression and anxiety as well as comparing their prevalence and severity to each other.
Methods: The study included 27 PD patients who also suffered from RLS, 27 PD patients not suffering from RLS, and 27 gender-matched healthy individuals. All were evaluated for caseness and severity of both anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); HADS-A and HADS-D, respectively.
Results: PD patients with RLS reported having the highest prevalence of both anxiety and depression. The least reported cases for both anxiety and depression were in the control group. In comparison, the results for severity of anxiety and depression within the three groups showed that PD patients with and without RLS had significantly higher severity scores for both anxiety and depression than the control group, but the scores did not significantly differ between the two PD patient groups.
Conclusion: The presence of RLS in PD patients may increase the occurrence of both anxiety and depression, but the severity of the symptoms is not significant in the two groups of the PD patients.