Depressive symptoms and diabetes mellitus in an Asian multiracial population

Singapore has one of the world's highest rates of diabetes mellitus (DM). DM is also associated with depression, the nature of this relation is possibly bidirectional and complex and there are a number of putative associated factors.

To establish the prevalence of depressive symptoms in an Asian multiracial population with diabetes and identify some of these putative risk factors including ethnicity for depressive symptoms while controlling for multiple confounding variables.

This is a cross-sectional epidemiological study in an Asian multiracial population with DM. The subjects were 537 outpatients (aged 21 years and above) attending a specialist diabetes treatment centre in a general hospital. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) with a cut-off score of 16 or more indicating the presence of depressive symptoms.

The prevalence of depressive symptoms was 31.1%. Following a logistic regression with depression as the dependent variable, Indian race, type of treatment, activity level and marital status (divorced/separated) were significantly associated with a high risk of depression.

This is the first study done among 3 ethnic groups Chinese, Malays and Indians within the same geographical location, and the findings show that depressive symptoms are common among diabetic patients and highest among those of Indian ethnicity.