the prevalence of mental disorders (particularly depression and anxiety) in a sample of canadian cancer patients who were referred to a psychosocial oncology program was investigated. thirty-one cancer patients filled out both the beck depression inventory-11 (bdi-ii) and the beck anxiety inventory (bai) before seeing their psychosocial counselor who evaluated the patient according to diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders — 4th ed. diagnostic criteria. the prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in cancer patients was found to be 13% and 6.45%, respectively. total bdi-ii and bai scores remained constant over time and both instruments were found to be reliable measures of symptom severity. a number of demographic and cancer-related variables significantly correlated with bdi-ii and bai scores. neither the bdiii nor the bai appeared to be particularly good at predicting dsm-fv diagnosis.