The effect of anxiety and depression on progression of glaucoma

Glaucoma is considered a chronic disease that requires lifelong management. Chronic diseases are known to be highly associated with psychological disturbances such as depression and anxiety. There have also been many studies on association between anxiety or depression and glaucoma. The majority of these studies explained that the glaucoma diagnosis causes anxiety or depression. However, It is also necessary to evaluate whether the psychological disturbance itself affect glaucoma. Therefore, we investigated the association of anxiety and depression with glaucoma progression, and elucidate mechanisms underlying that. We included 251 eyes with open angle glaucoma who were followed up for at least 2 years in this retrospective case–control study. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Beck Depressive Inventory-II (BDI-II) were used to assess anxiety and depression in glaucoma patients. Patients were classified into groups (high-anxiety group; HA-G, low-anxiety group; LA-G, high-depression group; HD-G, low-depression group; LD-G) according to their score on the BAI or BDI-II (separately). In logistic regression analysis, disc hemorrhage, peak intraocular pressure (IOP) and RNFL thickness loss rate were significantly associated with high anxiety (p = 0.017, p = 0.046, p = 0.026). RNFL thinning rate and disc hemorrhage were significant factors associated with anxiety in multivariate models (p = 0.015, p = 0.019). Multivariate linear regression analysis showed a significant positive correlation between the rate of RNFL thickness loss and BAI score (B = 0.058; 95% confidential interval = 0.020–0.097; p = 0.003), and RNFL loss and IOP fluctuation (B = 0.092; 95% confidential interval = 0.030–0.154; p = 0.004). For the depression scale, visual field mean deviation and heart rate variability were significantly associated with high depression in multivariate logistic regression analysis (p = 0.003, p = 0.006). We suggest that anxiety increase the risk of glaucoma progression and they are also associated with IOP profile and disc hemorrhage.