Overactive Bladder and Suicidal Ideation: A National Cross-Sectional Study Identifying Depression as the Primary...

Overactive bladder (OAB) is associated with depression and other psychiatric morbidity, but its relationship with suicidal ideation has rarely been examined in nationally representative data, and the extent to which depression mediates this association is unknown. We aimed to estimate the OAB-suicidal-ideation association in U.S. adults and to quantify the mediating role of depression.

We analyzed 21 408 adults aged ≥ 20 years from NHANES 2007-2018 using survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression under three progressively adjusted models, and counterfactual mediation analysis (Valeri and VanderWeele 2013, regmedint package) to decompose the association into direct and depression-mediated components, with sensitivity analyses by OAB severity and OAB-wet phenotype.

OAB prevalence was 12.0% (weighted). OAB was strongly associated with suicidal ideation in the crude model (OR 2.42, 95% CI 1.92-3.06) and after demographic adjustment (OR 2.63, 2.09-3.30), but was attenuated to non-significance after full adjustment including depression (OR 1.23, 0.94-1.60; p = 0.130). The total effect was significant (OR 1.92, 1.54-2.39; p < 0.001), driven by an indirect effect through depression (TNIE OR 1.62, 1.49-1.76; p < 0.001), with a non-significant direct effect (PNDE OR 1.19, 0.96-1.46; p = 0.109). Depression mediated 79.8% (95% CI 61.1%-98.4%) of the association, with similar estimates for severe OAB (79.6%) and OAB-wet (79.1%).

Depression is the dominant mediator of the OAB-suicidal-ideation relationship, explaining approximately four-fifths of the total association. These findings reframe OAB as a marker of mental-health vulnerability rather than an independent risk factor, and support routine PHQ-9 screening in OAB care.