Diagnostic Criteria for Depression in Type 2 Diabetes: A Data-Driven Approach

Background While depression is a frequent psychiatric comorbid condition in diabetes and has significant clinical impact, the syndromal profile of depression and anxiety symptoms has not been examined in detail. Aims To determine the syndromal pattern of the depression and anxiety spectrum in a large series of patients with type 2 diabetes, as determined using a data-driven approach based on latent class analysis (LCA). Method Type 2 diabetes participants from the observational community-based Fremantle Diabetes Study Phase II underwent assessment of lifetime depression using the Brief Lifetime Depression Scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire 9-item version (PHQ-9) for current depression symptoms, and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale that was specifically developed and validated for this study. The main outcome measure was classes of patients with a specific syndromal profile of depression and anxiety symptoms based on LCA. Results LCA identified four classes that were interpreted as “major anxious depression”, “minor anxious depression”, “subclinical anxiety”, and “no anxious depression”. All nine DSM-IV/5 diagnostic criteria for major depression identified a class with a high frequency of major depression. All symptoms of anxiety had similar high probabilities as symptoms of depression for the “major depression-anxiety” class. There were significant differences between classes in terms of history of depression and anxiety, use of psychoactive medication, and diabetes-related variables. Conclusions Patients with type 2 diabetes show specific profiles of depression and anxiety. Anxiety symptoms are an integral part of major depression in type 2 diabetes. The different classes identified here provide empirically validated phenotypes for future research.