Risk factors for depressive symptoms in glaucoma patients: a nationwide case-control study

The purpose was to investigate the risk factors for depressive symptoms in glaucoma patients.

From the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database in Taiwan, we included 1190 glaucoma patients with subsequent depression diagnoses in the case group and randomly selected 4673 glaucoma patients without depression diagnoses as the control group, matched by age, sex, and time of glaucoma diagnosis. The age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity index (ACCI) score was used to compute the burden of comorbidity for each patient. Current use (past 6 months) of topical antiglaucoma medications and systemic medications was identified. Multivariate regression was used to analyze the risk factors for depression.

The mean age for glaucoma patients was 61.88 years. Patients with depressive symptoms had significantly higher ACCI scores (P < .0001). The current use of any topical antiglaucoma medications was not associated with an increased risk for depression. However, higher ACCI scores (P < .0001), cerebrovascular diseases (odds ratio [OR] = 1.324, 95 % confidence interval [CI] = 1.118--1.568), dementia (OR = 2.647, 95 % CI = 2.142-3.270), thyroid diseases (OR = 1.720, 95 % CI = 1.366-2.165), headaches (OR = 1.299, 95 % CI = 1.112-1.518), and current use of systemic β-blockers (OR = 1.782, 95 % CI = 1.538-2.065) and calcium channel blockers (OR = 1.396, 95 % CI, 1.197-1.629) were found to increase the risk of depression in glaucoma patients.

In this study, a comorbidity burden was a significant risk factor for depression in glaucoma patients, particularly for those currently using systemic β-blockers and calcium channel blockers.