Longitudinal association between the dynamic nature of depression with lower urinary tract symptoms suggestive of...

Depression is associated with an increased risk of lower urinary tract symptoms suggestive of benign prostatic hyperplasia (LUTS/BPH). Whether the dynamic nature of depression affects the incidence of LUTS/BPH remains unknown. A four-year cohort study based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) was conducted to assess their association.

This study included 3433 Chinese men from the CHARLS 2011, representative of > 95 million individuals. All eligible individuals underwent three assessments of LUTS/BPH and depression in 2011, 2013 and 2015. The dynamic nature of depression was classified as acute depression with remission, acute depression with recurrence, or chronic major depression. Weighted, generalized additive analyses with three binomial models were used to investigate the relationship between LUTS/BPH and the dynamic nature of depression.

During the four-year follow-up, 11.5% (95% confidence interval [95% CI] = 9.5-13.3%) of Chinese men were diagnosed with newly incident LUTS/BPH. Meanwhile, there were 60.6% (95% CI = 58.5-62.7%) of the individuals without depression and 8.9% (95% CI = 7.9-10%) of the individuals with chronic major depression. A total of 25.1% (95% CI = 23.4-26.9%) and 5.4% (95% CI = 4.6-6.3%) of the individuals were categorized as acute depression with remission and recurrence. After weighted, adjusted all included confounding risk factors, chronic major depression (RR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.14-2.33, P < 0.01) but not acute depression with remission (RR = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.92-1.56, P = 0.18) and recurrence (RR = 1.32, 95% CI = 0.82-2.10, P = 0.26) significantly increased the incidence of LUTS/BPH compared with no depression. The subgroup analysis showed that the above relationships appeared to be evident among Chinese men < 60 years.

Our results suggest that the dynamic nature of depression has a different effect on the incidence of LUTS/BPH. The monitoring and treatment of depression are important in preventing LUTS/BPH.