Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Sep-Oct;54(5):428-36.
doi: 10.1016/j.psym.2013.02.015. Epub 2013 Jun 4.

Depression and death in diabetes; 10-year follow-up of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in a diabetic cohort

Affiliations

Depression and death in diabetes; 10-year follow-up of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in a diabetic cohort

Shane M Coleman et al. Psychosomatics. 2013 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

Background: When depression co-occurs with type 2 diabetes, adverse bidirectional interactions increase the burden of both illnesses. In addition to affecting patient's health, functioning, and quality of life, this relationship also results in increased mortality compared with those with depression or diabetes alone.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between depression and all-cause as well as cause-specific mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes by extending findings from our 5-year mortality study. Specifically, we re-examined the risk of depression and all-cause, cardiovascular, cancer, and non-cardiovascular, non-cancer related deaths.

Method: We used an ICD-10 algorithm combined with death certificate data to classify mortality types among type 2 diabetic patients who participated in the Pathways Epidemiologic Study. Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to examine the relationships between depression status and mortality over a 10-year period.

Results: We found a significant positive relationship between depression and all-cause as well as non-cardiovascular, non-cancer mortality in this sample (n = 4128). Cardiovascular mortality failed to reach significance in fully adjusted models and, in contrast to the 5-year data, no trend or significant relationship was observed between depression status and cancer related deaths.

Conclusions: Our study confirmed a significant positive relationship between depression and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Major depression demonstrated a stronger relationship than did minor depression, and among cause-specific groups, non-cardiovascular, non-cancer death types demonstrated the largest magnitude of association with depression status.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest:

Dr. Von Korff receives funding from Pfizer through a sub-contract with Geisinger for research related to low back pain. Dr. Katon has been funded for CME and talks from Lilly, Pfizer, Wyeth and Forest. Drs. Lin and Coleman have no conflicts of interest to report.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Recruitment of Epidemiologic Cohort Study to Assess Mortality *adapted from the original publication

References

    1. Golden SH, Lazo M, Carnethon M, Bertoni AG, Schreiner PJ, Diez Roux AV, et al. Examining a bidirectional association between depressive symptoms and diabetes. JAMA. 2008 Jun;299(23):2751–2759. PubMed PMID: 18560002. Pubmed Central PMCID: PMC2648841. eng. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Katon WJ. The comorbidity of diabetes mellitus and depression. Am J Med. 2008 Nov;121(11 Suppl 2):S8–S15. PubMed PMID: 18954592. Pubmed Central PMCID: PMC2717744. eng. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Katon WJ. Epidemiology and treatment of depression in patients with chronic medical illness. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2011;13(1):7–23. PubMed PMID: 21485743. Pubmed Central PMCID: PMC3181964. eng. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Katon W, Schulberg H. Epidemiology of depression in primary care. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 1992 Jul;14(4):237–247. PubMed PMID: 1505745. eng. - PubMed
    1. American Diabetes Association - Diabetes Statistics, 2011. National Diabetes Fact Sheet. 2011. [cited 2012 8-15-12].

Publication types