Table 4.

Anxiety and Depression scores (HADS questionnaire) of the participants who completed the final assessment.

HADS Domains	Placebo (n = 26)	Mel-Zinc (n = 24)	p-Value 1
Anxiety
Baseline	13.12 ± 0.95	11.92 ± 0.77	0.163
8 weeks	11.08 ± 0.90 **	12.46 ± 0.78	0.275
16 weeks	13.00 ± 1.06	11.67 ± 0.80	0.124
4 weeks post-treatment	12.50 ± 1.06 *	12.48 ± 0.73	0.543
Depression
Baseline	11.62 ± 1.04	11.71 ± 0.67	0.718
8 weeks	10.77 ± 1.01	11.58 ± 0.86	0.907
16 weeks	11.87 ± 1.03	11.08 ± 0.81	0.353
4 weeks post-treatment	11.54 ± 0.96	11.74 ± 0.81	0.535
Total HADS
Baseline	25.92 ± 1.38	21.92 ± 1.67	0.062
8 weeks	21.85 ± 1.81 *	24.04 ± 1.44	0.613
16 weeks	24.87 ± 1.99	22.75 ± 1.41	0.201
4 weeks post-treatment	24.04 ± 1.94	24.22 ± 1.34	0.400

Data are expressed as the mean ± SEM and compared by a paired Student’s t-test, where appropriate, for intragroup analysis, and by a Wilcoxon’s signed rank test for between-group analysis. The significance threshold was set at * p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01. Abbreviations: Mel-Zinc, Melatonin plus Zinc group; HADS, Hospital anxiety and depression scale. Lower scores indicate an improvement in the anxiety/depression symptoms. ¹ p-values for between-group analysis.