Epidemiology of Depressive Disorders in Patients With Liver Cirrhosis: A Population-Based Study in the United States

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a chronic, debilitating mood disorder associated with poor medical outcomes. MDD has a multifactorial etiology with numerous biopsychosocial factors implicated as risk factors. Functional and psychiatric impairments have been evaluated in patients with liver cirrhosis; however, less is known about the prevalence and risk factors for the development of MDD in those patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the risk of developing depression among adult patients with liver cirrhosis in the United States.

Data were collected using a commercial database, an aggregate of electronic health record data from 26 major integrated US health care systems consisting of 360 hospitals in the US from 1999 to 2019.

The study cohort was retrieved by searching the database for a Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms diagnosis of "cirrhosis of liver" during the designated period of the study.

The following factors were adjusted for in the analyses: age, sex, race, smoking, alcohol, substance abuse, underlying mental disorders, and comorbidities.

56,197,690 adults were identified between 1999 and 2019. Of those, 293,150 had a diagnosis of liver cirrhosis. The prevalence of depression among those cirrhotic patients was 23.93% versus 7.61% in the noncirrhotic control group (95% CI, 16.1836%-16.4770%; P < .0001). By applying a multivariate analysis model, cirrhotic patients were found to be more likely to develop depression (odds ratio = 2.172; 95% CI, 2.159-2.185; P < .0001) compared to patients with no prior history of liver cirrhosis.

Liver cirrhosis is associated with increased risk of depression and is likely to be an independent risk factor in its development. Future efforts should focus on the identification and treatment of this debilitating condition in those with liver cirrhosis via an integrated care model.