Mental health in UK Biobank – development, implementation and results from an online questionnaire completed by 157 366 participants: a reanalysis

Abstract

Background UK Biobank is a well-characterised cohort of over 500 000 participants including genetics, environmental data and imaging. An online mental health questionnaire was designed for UK Biobank participants to expand its potential. Aims Describe the development, implementation and results of this questionnaire. Method An expert working group designed the questionnaire, using established measures where possible, and consulting a patient group. Operational criteria were agreed for defining likely disorder and risk states, including lifetime depression, mania/hypomania, generalised anxiety disorder, unusual experiences and self-harm, and current post-traumatic stress and hazardous/harmful alcohol use. Results A total of 157 366 completed online questionnaires were available by August 2017. Participants were aged 45–82 (53% were ≥65 years) and 57% women. Comparison of self-reported diagnosed mental disorder with a contemporary study shows a similar prevalence, despite respondents being of higher average socioeconomic status. Lifetime depression was a common finding, with 24% (37 434) of participants meeting criteria and current hazardous/harmful alcohol use criteria were met by 21% (32 602), whereas other criteria were met by less than 8% of the participants. There was extensive comorbidity among the syndromes. Mental disorders were associated with a high neuroticism score, adverse life events and long-term illness; addiction and bipolar affective disorder in particular were associated with measures of deprivation. Conclusions The UK Biobank questionnaire represents a very large mental health survey in itself, and the results presented here show high face validity, although caution is needed because of selection bias. Built into UK Biobank, these data intersect with other health data to offer unparalleled potential for crosscutting biomedical research involving mental health.

Associations between psychiatric disorders, COVID-19 testing probability and COVID-19 testing results: findings from a population-based study

“…The full UK Biobank cohort consists of 502 505 individuals recruited between 2006 and 2010, out of which 157 366 participants have information on a mental health questionnaire. 18 The composition, set-up and data gathering protocols of the UK Biobank have been extensively described elsewhere. 19,20 We made use of data from UK Biobank participants whose COVID-19 test results were released on 21 April 2020 under application access code 55392.…”

Using Major Depression Polygenic Risk Scores to Explore the Depressive Symptom Continuum

“…Participants were from the UK Biobank, a national health resource of 502,655 individuals aged between 37 and 73 at the time of recruitment (2006 - 2010) (Bycroft et al, 2018). In 2016, participants were offered an online Mental Health Questionnaire (MHQ) which 157,336 participants voluntarily completed (Davis et al, 2020).…”

“…Future studies should seek to confirm this model in longitudinal settings to test if it is robust to temporal invariance (Widamann, Ferrer & Conger, 2010). Furthermore, the MHQ was completed in one sitting, and the distinction between factors might reflect an artefact of time from the three questionnaires taken at different points in the MHQ (Davis et al, 2020).…”

Exploring Phenotypic and Genetic Overlap Between Cannabis Use and Schizotypy

“…Within the UKB, six schizotypy phenotypes were analyzed: 'distress caused by psychotic experience', 'frequency of psychotic experience', 'ever seen an unreal vision', 'ever believed in unreal communication', 'ever heard an unreal voice' and 'ever believed in an unreal conspiracy against self'. Each phenotype was measured using a single question administered to participants in the UKB online mental health questionnaire (Davis et al, 2020).…”