Objectives: The study explores whether breast-cancer patients who request psychosocial support have higher psychological strain compared to those who do not. We also explored whether scores on HADS-D and PHQ-D identify the same patients as being stressed as well as the relationship between patient's wish for psychological support and psychological strain. Methods: 115 inpatients with breast cancer took part in the screening and were asked if they wanted psychosocial support. Results: Above-normal scores in anxiety and depression are reported by 25-29%, with 41 % indicating a wish for psychosocial support. These patients showed significantly higher scores on the questionnaires. Their request for psychosocial support shows a similar sensitivity (.733) and specificity (.662) as the "Distress-Thermometer" or "PO-Bado". Discussion: The desire for psychosocial support appears to be a valuable piece of additional information for indicating psychosocial support. However, HADS-D and PHQ-D agree only in 77 % of the individual patients.