AUTHOR=Ge Fenfen , Jiang Jingwen , Wang Yue , Wan Mentong , Zhang Wei 

TITLE=Mapping the Presence of Anxiety Symptoms in Adults With Major Depressive Disorder

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 12 - 2021

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.595418

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2021.595418

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) patients are often co-occurrence with anxiety symptoms. The network method provides a novel view on understanding the co-occurrence of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Thus, the purpose of our study was to explore it by applying network analysis methods. Methods: We used the electronic medical records from West China Hospital in China. In total, 3424 patients who met criteria for MDD were included. R-studio 3.6 was used to estimate the network structure. First, we estimated the network structure of depression and anxiety symptoms using the graphic LASSO algorithm. Then, we estimated the centrality indices of nodes to determine which symptoms are more central in the network. Further, we estimated the bridge centrality indices using the bridge function via the R package networktools. Results: Some strong connections were found like “easy to wake up,” “wake up early,” and “difficulty falling asleep”, “suicidal thoughts” and “hopelessness”. “Depressed mood”, “somatic anxiety”, “hopelessness”, “anxiety mood” and “tension” have the higher centrality indices. Results revealed eight bridge symptoms (e.g., concentration/memory difficulty, gastrointestinal symptoms) in the co-occurrence network structure. Conclusions: This research suggested that the co-occurrence anxiety symptoms among major depressive disorder patients are contributed to portray symptom-to-symptom links. Multiple interventions, such as nodes interventions, network interventions and bridge symptoms, could be promising targets for prevention and treatment.