Depression and Gout Study

Depression may increase the risk of gout suggests a new study published in the International Journal of Rheumatic Diseases.

The co-disease of depression and gout is becoming more common in the modern era. However, the relationship between the severity of depressive symptoms and gout prevalence and treatment rate was still unclear. This study aimed to determine the relationship between the prevalence, treatment rate of gout, and the severity of depression in the United States. The cross-sectional analysis of the 2007-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for participants with depression was performed. According to their Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scores, participants were categorized as none, mild, moderate, moderately severe, and severe. To learn the correlation between the severity of depressive symptoms and the prevalence and treatment rate of gout using multivariate logistic regression to control for confounder interference.

Results

A total of 25,022 patients were included in this study. As the severity of the depressive symptoms worsened (Mild, Moderate and Moderately severe), the risk of gout increased in non-adjusted model and model 1, 2, 3 (p-value for trend = .01 in non-adjusted model, <.0001 in model 1, <.01 in models 2 and 3; prevalence group in Model 1, aOR 1.71, 95% CI (1.40, 2.08) in the mild group, aOR 1.68, 95% CI (1.19, 2.39) in the moderate group, aOR 1.31, 95% CI (0.82, 2.11) in the moderately severe group, aOR 1.21, 95% CI (0.62, 2.38) in the severe group). However, the lower gout prevalence trend has no statistical significance after adjusting all factors in Model 4 (p-value for trend = .98).

Compared with patients without depression, only a few patients received treatment, especially patients with severe depression (none, 80.1%; severe, 0.2%). The more severe the depression, the lower the treatment rate. Compared with patients without depression, the patients with depression had a higher risk of gout. With the aggravation of depression, the prevalence of gout and the rate of treatment both decreased. Patients with gout and depression need to receive multidisciplinary care after diagnosis. However, currently, treatment cannot meet the needs of the current patients.

Reference

Lu S, Qian T, Cao F, Kang T, Liu X, Wang C, Xia Y, Hou X. Prevalence and treatment rate of gout by depressive symptom severity: A cross-sectional analysis of NHANES 2007-2018. Int J Rheum Dis. 2024 Jan;27(1):e14959. doi: 10.1111/1756-185X.14959. Epub 2023 Nov 20. PMID: 37984452.