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Longitudinal research on the bidirectional association between depression and arthritis

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Abstract

Purpose

Studies evaluating the mutual relation between depression and arthritis have been limited and yielded inconsistent results. The aim of this study was to investigate the bidirectional relationship between depression and arthritis in a middle-aged and elderly Chinese population.

Methods

Participants ≥ 45 years of age were included from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). In stage I, we assessed the association of baseline depression with follow-up arthritis. In stage II, we examined whether the onset of arthritis predicted future depression. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and confidence intervals (CIs) in stage I and stage II, respectively.

Results

In stage I, 24.3% (679/2794) of the depression group and 15.4% (1000/6482) of the non-depression group developed new arthritis cases. Compared with non-depression individuals, the risk of developing arthritis in depression patients was significantly higher (OR: 1.56, 95% CI 1.37–1.79). In stage II, 39.7% (973/2453) subjects in the arthritis group and 26.7% (1667/6236) subjects in the non-arthritis group developed depressive symptoms. The adjusted OR (95% CI) for depression in the arthritis group was 1.64 (1.45–1.86) times higher than that in the non-arthritis group. In the subgroup analyses according to sex, age, household income, residence, body mass index, smoking and drinking, all sub-groups yielded consistent associations.

Conclusion

The onset of depression increased the risk of incident arthritis; in addition, baseline arthritis predicted future depression in middle-aged and elderly Chinese adults.

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Data availability

The data used and analyzed in this study are publicly available from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (http://charls.pku.edu.cn/zh-CN).

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Acknowledgements

This analysis uses data or information from the Harmonized CHARLS dataset and Codebook, Version C as of April 2018 developed by the Gateway to Global Aging Data. The development of the Harmonized CHARLS was funded by the National Institute on Ageing (R01 AG030153, RC2 AG036619, R03 AG043052). For more information, please refer to www.g2aging.org.

Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81703316, 81703322) and Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Guangdong Province of China (A2019438).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Medical College of Soochow University, 199 Renai Road, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Chaofu Ke, Yanan Qiao & Siyuan Liu

  2. School of Public Health, Medical College of Soochow University, 199 Renai Road, Suzhou, 215123, People’s Republic of China

    Yuqi Rui

  3. State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Department of Biostatistics, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, 510515, People’s Republic of China

    Ying Wu

Authors
  1. Chaofu Ke
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  2. Yanan Qiao
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  3. Siyuan Liu
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  4. Yuqi Rui
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  5. Ying Wu
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Contributions

CK and YW conceived and designed the research; CK and YQ wrote the manuscript; and SL and YW performed the data analysis. All authors contributed to the interpretations of the findings. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ying Wu.

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Conflicts of interest

None declared.

Ethics approval

CHARLS was approved by Biomedical Ethics Review Committee of Peking University, and all participants signed informed consents.

Consent to participate

All participants enrolled in CHARLS signed informed consents.

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Ke, C., Qiao, Y., Liu, S. et al. Longitudinal research on the bidirectional association between depression and arthritis. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 56, 1241–1247 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-020-01994-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-020-01994-7

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