Original articleAlimentary tractChronic Diarrhea and Constipation Are More Common in Depressed Individuals
Section snippets
Study Cohort
Data were extracted from the 2009–2010 NHANES dataset. The NHANES offers a publicly available, nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized individuals in the United States. The NHANES survey program is conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta, GA). Participants are selected using stratified multistage probability design with oversampling of certain ethnic and age groups to allow for sample-weighted inference
Results
A total of 5160 subjects completed the Bowel Health Questionnaire and met our eligibility criteria (20 years of age and did not report a history of inflammatory bowel disease or celiac disease). Of these, there were 491 depressed and 4669 nondepressed.
In our weighted sample, 24.33% (95% CI, 19.57%–29.81%) of depressed subjects and 12.54% (95% CI, 11.17%–14.07%) of nondepressed subjects reported disordered bowel habits (P < .0001). We found that chronic diarrhea was significantly more prevalent
Discussion
This is the first study to evaluate the relationship between depression and bowel habits (constipation, diarrhea, and normal) in a nationally representative adult sample in the United States. In this sample, 24.3% of patients with depression reported disordered bowel habits, compared with 12.5% of those without depression. Chronic diarrhea was present in nearly 16% of individuals with depression and chronic constipation was present in 9% of depressed patients.
In this study, depression severity
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Conflicts of interest The authors disclose no conflicts.
Funding This project was funded in part by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant # T32DK007760 (to Sarah Ballou) and Prashant Singh.