Ires Ghielen

46 Chapter 3 Results Of the available patient sample of 176 patients, 48 patients were excluded due to >16.67% missing BAI-items. Of the remaining 128 patients, five patients were excluded due to overlap with the sample of Rutten et al. [18]. Finally, the total sample used in our analyses consisted of 123 patients. Demographic and clinical characteristics Demographic and clinical characteristics of the patient sample are shown in Table 1. Due to missing data on the UPDRS-III and unknown disease duration, 14 and 38 additional patients were excluded in these characteristics data, respectively. The majority of patients was male, mean age was 66.1 years. Patients had a mean UPDRS-III score of 27.3 and a mean MoCA score of 23.8, with 55.9% of patients scoring below the cut-off of 26 points, indicative of cognitive decline [26]. Half of the patients (49.6%) had sought treatment for psychiatric symptoms prior to receiving a PD diagnosis. Of this sub-population, 45.5% did so specifically for symptoms of anxiety. Currently, the vast majority of the patients (91.9%) received at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Table 1. Clinical and demographic characteristics (N = 123) Mean SD Range % Female 38.2 Age 66.1 9.8 34-86 Disease duration (years) (n=85) 8.4 6.9 0-29 MoCA score 23.8 4.7 5-30 UPDRS-III score (n=109) 27.3 14.8 1-76 Total BAI score 20.3 11.4 0-55 Total BDI score 18.2 9.3 1-47 % Use dopaminergic medication 93.5 % Treatment of psychiatric symptoms prior to PD diagnosis 49.6 Anxiety The mean BAI total score for this patient sample was 20.3 (± 11.4), and 77.4% of the patients had a BAI score higher than 12, indicating clinically relevant symptoms of anxiety. According to the psychiatrist ’ s assessment, 65 patients (52.9% of the total sample) met DSM-IV or -5 criteria for an anxiety disorder.