Depressive symptoms, resilience, and personality traits in dry eye disease

Dry eye disease (DED) is a multifactorial disease of the ocular surface that leads to symptoms of discomfort and reduces quality of life. Several studies have shown an association with depression. We investigated the prevalence of depressive symptoms and their severity in DED patients and examined whether depressive symptoms correlate with signs, symptoms, or subtypes of DED or with psychological factors (resilience, premorbid personality, and subjective well-being).

This cross-sectional study (n = 64, mean age 56.72, 70% women) was conducted at the Dry Eye Clinic of the Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Düsseldorf. Psychological assessment included the Beck Depression Inventory, revised version (BDI-II); World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5); 13-item Resilience Scale (RS-13); and Munich Personality Test (MPT). DED parameters were assessed by the Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI), Schirmer test (ST), tear film break-up time (TBUT), and corneal fluorescein staining (CFS). As the reference for the BDI-II depression score, we used standard values from a German sample of healthy individuals (n = 582, 66% women). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the effects of various parameters on depressive symptoms. Associations between variables were examined by Pearson or Spearman correlation tests.

Among all participants, 61% had depressive symptoms (25% minimal, 14% mild, 17% moderate, and 5% severe). The mean BDI-II score (11.95, ± 8.46) was significantly higher than in the healthy reference group (p < .0001). It was not correlated with the severity of signs or symptoms of DED or with its subtypes, but it was significantly negatively correlated with resilience (p < .0001) and subjective well-being (p < .0001). Depressive symptoms were negatively correlated with the premorbid personality trait extraversion (p = .036) and frustration tolerance (p < .0001) and positively correlated with premorbid neuroticism (p = .001), isolation tendencies (p = .014), and esoteric tendencies (p = .001).

Depressive symptoms of all degrees of severity are common in DED patients, but they are not associated with the severity of signs or symptoms of DED. Subjective well-being, resilience, and premorbid personality do not correlate with the signs or symptoms of DED, but they do correlate with depressive symptoms.