Prospective study of restless legs syndrome and risk of depression in women.
Most research on the association between restless legs syndrome (RLS) and depression has involved cross-sectional data. The objective of the present study was to evaluate this issue prospectively among Nurses' Health Study participants. A total of 56,399 women (mean age = 68 years) who were free of depression symptoms at baseline (2002) were followed until 2008. Physician-diagnosed RLS was self-reported. During 300,155 person-years of follow-up, the authors identified 1,268 incident cases of clinical depression (regular use of antidepressant medication and physician-diagnosed depression). Women with RLS at baseline were more likely to develop clinical depression (multivariate-adjusted relative risk (RR) = 1.5, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1, 2.1; P = 0.02) than those without RLS. The presence of RLS at baseline was also associated with higher scores on the 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10) and the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) thereafter. Multivariable-adjusted mean differences were 1.00 (standard error, 0.12) for CESD-10 score and 0.47 (standard error, 0.07) for GDS-15 score between women with RLS and those without RLS (P < 0.0001). In conclusion, women with physician-diagnosed RLS had an increased risk of developing clinical depression and clinically relevant depression symptoms. Further prospective studies using refined approaches to ascertainment of RLS and depression are warranted.
Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Yanping
Y
Li
Fariba
F
Mirzaei
Eilis J
EJ
O'Reilly
John
J
Winkelman
Atul
A
Malhotra
Olivia Ifeoma
OI
Okereke
Alberto
A
Ascherio
Xiang
X
Gao
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016014:Linear Models; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012148:Restless Legs Syndrome / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology; D012307:Risk Factors; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology