[Prevalence of thyroid disorders in patients diagnosed with depression].

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of thyroid disorders in patients diagnosed with depression.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional descriptive study (random sampling).

SETTING

Primary care, San Fernando (Cádiz).

PATIENTS

Patients diagnosed with depression (DSM IV criteria) at the San Fernando Mental Health Centre.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

108 patients were studied (95% CI; p = 11 +/- 5%), in whom figures for TSH in the blood, free T3 and T4 and anti-thyroid antibodies (anti-thyroglobulin and anti-TPO) were determined. We found a predominance of women among the patients studied (5:1) and only found thyroid disorders in women (100%). The age group with greatest frequency of depressive illness was from 50 to 59. 73.1% of all the thyroid disorders were found in the 30-59 age group. We detected a high number of depressive patients with unknown thyroid analytic disorder (24.1%) and a relevant prevalence of depressives with thyroid auto-immune disease (16.6%), especially due to positive anti-TPOs, exceeding the prevalence in previous studies. There was less hypothyroidism than expected (7.4% against 8-14%), although more than the estimated figure for the population as a whole (5%).

CONCLUSIONS

Indiscriminate thyroid tests on depressive patients, as a screening method, can be dispensed with. Given the results of anti-thyroid antibodies and the few studies of prevalence in the depressive population, it seems appropriate to conduct studies with a bigger sample and meta-analysis previous research.