The Biopsychosocial Burden of Prostate Biopsy

Prostate biopsy was offered to 47 consecutive patients with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) over 4 ng/dl or suspicious digital rectal examination (DRE) of whom 16 had undergone a biopsy. Comprehensive validated questionnaires at TIME 0 (pre-biopsy), TIME 1 (before diagnosis, 20 days after biopsy) and TIME 2 (after diagnosis, 40 days after biopsy) accessed patients' erectile (IIEF-5) and voiding (IPSS) functions, Beck scales measured anxiety (BAI), hopelessness (BHS) and depression (BDI), added to the emotional thermometers including five visual analog scales for distress, anxiety, depression, anger and need for help. Mann-Whitney or Friedman tests were obtained among times and studied variables.

A prospective, longitudinal and observational study in which the sexually active patients were evaluated in the Urology Department of the city of Paulínia, submitted to biopsy guided by transrectal ultrasound after ethics committee approval (355.357). Consecutive patients who were attended by urologist and present prostate cancer suspicions (PSA\> 4 ng / dL and/or rectal examination (TR) were submitted a BXP. They were evaluated at three different moments of the biopsy: * Seven days before the biopsy procedure (T0); * 20 days after the biopsy, upon receiving the histopathological result, before becoming aware of it (T1); * 40 days after the biopsy, 20 days after being aware of the test result (T2). Sixty-one consecutive patients were invited to participate in the study, 10 of them had no active sexual life and 9 answered the questionnaires only at the first moment, were excluded; 47 responded at three times (T0, T1, and T2). Validated instruments were applied - IIEF-5 (erectile function); - IPSS (voiding function); - Beck scales - BAI (anxiety), BHS (hopelessness), BDI (depression); and - Emotional thermometers. The comparison among the moments (T0, T1, and T2) was performed through Friedman (analysis of variance) for repeated measures with the variables transformed in stations. The comparison between patients and variables was performed using the Mann-Whitney test. The sample power was calculated and the level of significance considered was 5%.