Pro Persona, Department of Old Age Psychiatry, Arnhem, The Netherlands; University Center of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2014 Aug;22(8):801-10. doi: 10.1016/j.jagp.2013.01.001. Epub 2013 Jun 12.
To examine the interplay between subclinical atherosclerotic disease and neuroticism in explaining variance in late-life depressive symptoms.
This study was part of the Nijmegen Biomedical Study, a population-based survey; 1,517 participants aged 50-70 years were included. Depressive symptoms were measured by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Principal components analysis of the BDI items yielded two factors, representing a cognitive-affective symptom cluster and a somatic-affective symptom cluster. Atherosclerotic disease was measured by the intima media thickness (IMT) of the carotid arteries and neuroticism by the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
Multiple linear regression analyses using different measures of depressive symptoms as the dependent variable showed that neuroticism was strongly and significantly associated with the sum score of the BDI and with the two depressive symptom clusters. IMT, however, was only significantly associated with the somatic-affective symptom cluster but not with the cognitive-affective symptom cluster. Interestingly, we found a significant negative interaction between neuroticism and IMT in explaining the severity of the cognitive-affective symptom cluster but not with respect to the somatic-affective symptom cluster.
The negative interaction between neuroticism and atherosclerosis indicates that neuroticism is less strongly associated with cognitive-depressive symptoms in the presence of more severe atherosclerosis. This may be explained by apathy due to cerebrovascular disease and fits with a hypothesis of vascular apathy.
探讨亚临床动脉粥样硬化疾病与神经质在解释老年期抑郁症状差异中的相互作用。
本研究是尼梅根生物医学研究的一部分，该研究是一项基于人群的调查；共纳入了 1517 名年龄在 50-70 岁之间的参与者。使用贝克抑郁量表（BDI）测量抑郁症状。BDI 项目的主成分分析得出了两个因子，分别代表认知情感症状群和躯体情感症状群。通过颈动脉内-中膜厚度（IMT）测量动脉粥样硬化疾病，通过修订后的艾森克人格问卷测量神经质。
使用不同的抑郁症状测量方法作为因变量的多元线性回归分析表明，神经质与 BDI 的总分以及两个抑郁症状群均呈强烈且显著相关。然而，IMT 仅与躯体情感症状群显著相关，而与认知情感症状群无关。有趣的是，我们发现神经质与 IMT 之间存在显著的负交互作用，可解释认知情感症状群的严重程度，但对躯体情感症状群无影响。
神经质与动脉粥样硬化之间的负交互作用表明，在存在更严重的动脉粥样硬化时，神经质与认知抑郁症状的相关性较弱。这可能是由于脑血管疾病导致的冷漠，符合血管冷漠假说。
