Seasonal variation in symptoms of depression: A Canadian population based study

Lukmanji, Aysha; Williams, Jeanne V.A.; Bulloch, Andrew G. M.; Bhattarai, Asmita; Patten, Scott B.

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2019.05.040

Cited by 36 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Two months later, the proportion of probable GAD was lowered to 19.6% in this country (according to data from Phase 1 of the international survey), but remained substantially higher than what was estimated in the pre-pandemic era (i.e., 2.5% [22]). The same applies to the current level of major depression in Canada, which may be four times higher than before the pandemic [23]. For a better comparison, the actual estimated prevalence of generalized anxiety and major depression among Canadian adults may be similar to, if not higher than, that observed in the community of Fort McMurray (Canada) six months after the devastating 2016 wildfires (19.8% and 14.8%, respectively [24,25]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Virus, Four Continents, Eight Countries: An Interdisciplinary and International Study on the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic among Adults

Généreux

Schluter

Hung

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic brought about several features that increased the sense of fear and confusion, such as quarantine and financial losses among other stressors, which may have led to adverse psychosocial outcomes. The influence of such stressors took place within a broader sociocultural context that needs to be considered. The objective was to examine how the psychological response to the pandemic varied across countries and identify which risk/protective factors contributed to this response. An online survey was conducted from 29 May 2020–12 June 2020, among a multinational sample of 8806 adults from eight countries/regions (Canada, United States, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Hong Kong, Philippines, New Zealand). Probable generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and major depression episode (MDE) were assessed. The independent role of a wide range of potential factors was examined using multilevel logistic regression. Probable GAD and MDE were indicated by 21.0% and 25.5% of the respondents, respectively, with an important variation according to countries/regions (GAD: 12.2–31.0%; MDE: 16.7–32.9%). When considered together, 30.2% of the participants indicated probable GAD or MDE. Several factors were positively associated with a probable GAD or MDE, including (in descending order of importance) weak sense of coherence (SOC), lower age, false beliefs, isolation, threat perceived for oneself/family, mistrust in authorities, stigma, threat perceived for country/world, financial losses, being a female, and having a high level of information about COVID-19. Having a weak SOC yielded the highest adjusted odds ratio for probable GAD or MDE (3.21; 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.73–3.77). This pandemic is having an impact on psychological health. In some places and under certain circumstances, however, people seem to be better protected psychologically. This is a unique opportunity to evaluate the psychosocial impacts across various sociocultural backgrounds, providing important lessons that could inform all phases of disaster risk management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Virus, Four Continents, Eight Countries: An Interdisciplinary and International Study on the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic among Adults

Généreux

Schluter

Hung

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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“…The current survey was in UK spring, whereas previous ALSPAC-G1 waves were predominantly completed in winter. Seasonal trends suggest that depression and anxiety scores are approximately 1-2 points (0.1 SD) lower and 5% less of individuals are above thresholds in spring than winter, [32] which may explain lower depression scores.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in two longitudinal UK population cohorts

Kwong

Pearson

Adams

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: The impact of COVID-19 on mental health is unclear. Evidence from longitudinal studies with pre pandemic data are needed to address (1) how mental health has changed from pre-pandemic levels to during the COVID-19 pandemic and (2), whether there are groups at greater risk of poorer mental health during the pandemic? Methods: We used data from COVID-19 surveys (completed through April/May 2020), nested within two large longitudinal population cohorts with harmonised measures of mental health: two generations of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALPSAC): the index generation ALSPAC-G1 (n= 2850, mean age 28) and the parents generation ALSPAC-G0 (n= 3720, mean age = 59) and Generation Scotland: Scottish Family Health Study (GS, (n= 4233, mean age = 59), both with validated pre-pandemic measures of mental health and baseline factors. To answer question 1, we used ALSPAC-G1, which has identical mental health measures before and during the pandemic. Question 2 was addressed using both studies, using pre-pandemic and COVID-19 specific factors to explore associations with depression and anxiety in COVID-19. Findings: In ALSPAC-G1 there was evidence that anxiety and lower wellbeing, but not depression, had increased in COVID-19 from pre-pandemic assessments. The percentage of individuals with probable anxiety disorder was almost double during COVID-19: 24% (95% CI 23%, 26%) compared to pre-pandemic levels (13%, 95% CI 12%, 14%), with clinically relevant effect sizes. In both ALSPAC and GS, depression and anxiety were greater in younger populations, women, those with pre-existing mental and physical health conditions, those living alone and in socio-economic adversity. We did not detect evidence for elevated risk in key workers or health care workers. Interpretation: These results suggest increases in anxiety and lower wellbeing that may be related to the COVID-19 pandemic and/or its management, particularly in young people. This research highlights that specific groups may be disproportionally at risk of elevated levels of depression and anxiety during COVID-19 and supports recent calls for increasing funds for mental health services. Funding: The UK Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust and University of Bristol.

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“…Past psychiatric seasonality studies [30,31] used relatively small cohorts, typically insufficient to distinguish seasonal variation in disease prevalence from the background noise-with a few important exceptions. SAD is the most recognized, seasonality-related psychiatric condition, a subtype of a unipolar depression [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Etiological hypotheses and experimental data have connected SAD to human circadian rhythms, the daily duration of exposure to sunlight, a patient's individual genetic variation, and their neurotransmitters' biochemistry [8][9][10][11].…”

Section: Plos Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If psychiatric disorders share many environmental risk factors, it should be possible to identify common environmental stimuli affecting many [7]-or even all-of them. One of the potential environmental drivers of selected psychiatric conditions, such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) [8][9][10][11] and depression [12][13][14][15][16][17], are the annual and daily sunlight cycles, which drive the circadian clock. Both SAD and depression tend to worsen during darker seasons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do psychiatric diseases follow annual cyclic seasonality?

et al. 2021

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Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) famously follows annual cycles, with incidence elevation in the fall and spring. Should some version of cyclic annual pattern be expected from other psychiatric disorders? Would annual cycles be similar for distinct psychiatric conditions? This study probes these questions using 2 very large datasets describing the health histories of 150 million unique U.S. citizens and the entire Swedish population. We performed 2 types of analysis, using “uncorrected” and “corrected” observations. The former analysis focused on counts of daily patient visits associated with each disease. The latter analysis instead looked at the proportion of disease-specific visits within the total volume of visits for a time interval. In the uncorrected analysis, we found that psychiatric disorders’ annual patterns were remarkably similar across the studied diseases in both countries, with the magnitude of annual variation significantly higher in Sweden than in the United States for psychiatric, but not infectious diseases. In the corrected analysis, only 1 group of patients—11 to 20 years old—reproduced all regularities we observed for psychiatric disorders in the uncorrected analysis; the annual healthcare-seeking visit patterns associated with other age-groups changed drastically. Analogous analyses over infectious diseases were less divergent over these 2 types of computation. Comparing these 2 sets of results in the context of published psychiatric disorder seasonality studies, we tend to believe that our uncorrected results are more likely to capture the real trends, while the corrected results perhaps reflect mostly artifacts determined by dominantly fluctuating, health-seeking visits across a given year. However, the divergent results are ultimately inconclusive; thus, we present both sets of results unredacted, and, in the spirit of full disclosure, leave the verdict to the reader.

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Seasonal variation in symptoms of depression: A Canadian population based study

Cited by 36 publications

References 11 publications

One Virus, Four Continents, Eight Countries: An Interdisciplinary and International Study on the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic among Adults

One Virus, Four Continents, Eight Countries: An Interdisciplinary and International Study on the Psychosocial Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic among Adults

Mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in two longitudinal UK population cohorts

Do psychiatric diseases follow annual cyclic seasonality?

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