ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2023
Major depressive disorders increase the susceptibility to self-reported infections in two German cohort studies.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patient Experiences and Perceptions with Infections Due to Multidrug-Resistant Organisms: A Systematic Review.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Pooled it
- Applications and reporting of causal inference modelling in infectious disease studies: A systematic review.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2026Article
- Association between influenza A virus and SARS-CoV-2 infections and mood disorders.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Streptomyces rimosus-rich soil exposure alleviates depression-like behaviors by modulating neuroinflammation and synaptic plasticity in mice with stress.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Beyond the Spine: Exploring Mental Health Disorders in Spondylodiscitis.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Factors associated with the presence and intensity of ongoing symptoms in Long COVID.PloS one · 2025Article
- Counternull sets in randomized experiments.The American statistician · 2025Article
- Examining the Relationships between the Incidence of Infectious Diseases and Mood Disorders: An Analysis of Data from the Global Burden of Disease Studies, 1990-2019.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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Abstract
introductionIn several claims-based studies, major depressive disorder (MDD) has been associated with increased risk of hospitalization due to acute infections. It remains unclear if this is a causal effect, and if it generalizes to an increased susceptibility to infections.
methodsWe used data of the BiDirect (n = 925) and the HaBIDS (n = 1007) cohort studies to estimate the effect of MDD on self-reported infections, which were assessed with identical infection susceptibility questionnaires in both studies. We used the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) to examine if there was a dose-response relationship between depressive symptom severity and self-reported infections.
resultsBiDirect participants with MDD diagnosis (48%) had a higher risk of lower respiratory tract infections (incidence rate ratio 1.32, 95% confidence interval [1.00-1.75]), gastrointestinal infections (1.68 [1.30-2.16]) and fever (1.48 [1.11-1.98]) after adjusting for confounders identified by a directed acyclic graph approach. There was a dose-response relationship, i.e. individuals with higher CES-D scores reported more infections. Effect sizes were similar in HaBIDS (4% individuals with MDD).
conclusionWe found increased risks of mild infections in patients with MDD diagnosis and a dose-response relationship between depressive symptom severity and infection frequency. While causal immunological pathways remain unclear, the results of our study might contribute to a change in prevention strategies, e.g. by recommending vaccination against influenza and S. pneumoniae to MDD patients because observed effect sizes in our study are similar to those of patients with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases for which the respective vaccinations are recommended.
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