Department of Psychiatry, Bellvitge University Hospital, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Psychiatry Res. 2010 Feb 28;175(3):217-20. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2008.10.025. Epub 2009 Dec 31.
Studies on the relationship between climate and unipolar depression rates have yielded mixed results, which could be attributed to the inclusion of heterogeneous clinical samples and the use of admission rather than onset dates. This study aimed to overcome these methodological issues. During an 8-year timeframe, onset rates of unipolar depressive episodes requiring hospitalization from individuals living up to 15 km from a selected meteorological station were stratified by clinical subtypes and modeled as Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) functions of orthogonal climatic factors obtained by Principal Components Analysis (PCA). For comparison purposes, onset rates stratified by demographic factors and by diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and admission rates were also modeled. The main findings were a negative 1-month delayed relationship between onset rates of episodes with melancholic features and a climatic factor mainly composed of ambient temperature/sunlight, and a negative 1-month delayed relationship between onset rates of episodes with psychotic features and a climatic factor mainly composed of barometric pressure. Results of this study support a climatic-rather than seasonal-influence in specific subtypes of depression. If replicated, they may have nosological and therapeutic implications.
关于气候和单相抑郁发生率之间关系的研究结果不一，这可能归因于纳入了异质的临床样本以及使用入院而非发病日期。本研究旨在克服这些方法学问题。在 8 年的时间框架内，根据临床亚型对居住在距离选定气象站 15 公里以内的个体需要住院治疗的单相抑郁发作的发病率进行分层，并将其建模为通过主成分分析（PCA）获得的正交气候因素的自回归综合移动平均（ARIMA）函数。为了进行比较，还按人口统计学因素和季节性情感障碍（SAD）的诊断以及入院率对发病率进行了分层建模。主要发现是具有忧郁特征的发作的发病率与主要由环境温度/阳光组成的气候因素之间存在 1 个月的负延迟关系，而具有精神病特征的发作的发病率与主要由气压组成的气候因素之间存在 1 个月的负延迟关系。这项研究的结果支持了特定抑郁亚型中气候而非季节的影响。如果得到复制，它们可能具有分类学和治疗意义。
