Negative cognitive biases in older adults with subthreshold depression

Subthreshold depression is a highly prevalent and poses significant risks to quality of life among older adults. Cognitive biases play a critical role in the development and maintenance of depressive symptoms. Investigating cognitive biases in individuals with subthreshold depression may facilitate early detection of depressive tendencies. This study aims to examine cognitive biases in older adults with subthreshold depression.

This cross-sectional study included 60 community-dwelling older adults (26 men, 34 women) with a mean age of 81.5 ± 5.0 years. Among them, 30 were identified as having subthreshold depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores: 8.70 ± 2.04) and 30 served as healthy controls (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores: 1.53 ± 1.33). Participants completed assessments of attention, memory, and interpretive biases through the dot-probe paradigm, recognition tasks, and ambiguous-scene tests. Data were analyzed using generalized estimating equations. Multiple comparisons were adjusted using FDR (Benjamini-Hochberg) and Holm-Bonferroni corrections.

Compared with controls, the subthreshold depression group exhibited stronger negative attentional bias (BI: Z = 7.83, p < 0.001; OI: Z = 3.57, p < 0.001; DI: Z = 3.25, p = 0.006), greater negative memory bias (Z = 8.46, p < 0.001), and more pronounced negative interpretive bias (Z = 4.51, p < 0.001).

Older adults with subthreshold depression exhibit significant attentional, memory, and interpretive biases towards negative information. These findings highlight the importance of early identification and intervention to prevent progression to MDD.