ArticleMultiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England)2021
Anxiety and depression affect performance on the symbol digit modalities test over time in MS and other immune disorders.
Article in Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England), 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cognition in multiple sclerosis within the modern diagnostic and treatment era.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Article
- [XVII Post-ECTRIMS Meeting: Review of the New Developments Presented at the 2024 ECTRIMS Congress (I)].Revista de neurologia · 2026Review
- Discrepancy Between Vaccination Willingness and Actual SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination Status in People with Multiple Sclerosis: A Longitudinal Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Trajectories of Digital Cognitive Biomarkers for Multiple Sclerosis.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2025Observational
- Anxiety and Cognition in Multiple Sclerosis: A Narrative Review.International journal of MS care · 2025Review
- Biomarkers and Rehabilitation for Functional Neurological Disorder.Journal of personalized medicine · 2024Review
- Vaccination status and self-reported side effects after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in relation to psychological and clinical variables in patients with multiple sclerosis.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Personality traits in patients with multiple sclerosis: their association with nicotine dependence and polypharmacy.Therapeutic advances in neurological disorders · 2024Article
- Within-person fluctuations over three years in depression, anxiety, fatigue, and health-related quality of life in multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2023Article
- Depression and Anxiety in Association with Polypharmacy in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- The Barancik lecture: Comorbidity in multiple sclerosis-Looking backward, looking forward.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2023Article
- In-person and remote administrations of the symbol digit modalities test are interchangeable among persons with multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis and related disorders · 2023Article
- Etiology, effects and management of comorbidities in multiple sclerosis: recent advances.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
- Acute relationships between mental health and cognitive function during the COVID-19 pandemic: Longitudinal evidence from middle-aged and older US adults.SSM. Mental health · 2022Article
- The comorbidity and cognition in multiple sclerosis (CCOMS) neuroimaging protocol: Study rationale, MRI acquisition, and minimal image processing pipelines.Frontiers in neuroimaging · 2022Article
- Improved prediction of early cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis combining blood and imaging biomarkers.Brain communications · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLongitudinal studies assessing depression and anxiety effects on cognition in multiple sclerosis (MS) are limited.
objectiveWe tested whether within-person fluctuations in symptoms of depression or anxiety over time affect cognition in persons with MS, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and a lifetime history of depression/anxiety disorders (DEP/ANX) but without an immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMID).
methodsWe followed participants (MS: 255, IBD: 247, RA: 154, and DEP/ANX: 306) for 3 years. Annually, they completed the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) and cognitive tests including the symbol digit modalities test (SDMT). We evaluated associations of elevated symptoms (scores ⩾ 11) of anxiety (HADS-A) and depression (HADS-D) with SDMT
resultsParticipants with MS performed worse on the SDMT than participants in the DEP/ANX cohort (β = -0.68; 95% CI: -0.88, -0.48). Participants with elevated HADS-A scores performed worse on the SDMT than those without elevated scores (β = -0.43; 95% CI: -0.65, -0.21), particularly those with RA. Time-varying within-person elevations in depressive symptoms were associated with worse SDMT performance (β = -0.12; 95% CI: -0.21, -0.021).
conclusionsAcross persons, elevated symptoms of anxiety adversely affected information processing. Elevated symptoms of depression within-persons over time were associated with declines in information processing speed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.