Effect of depressive symptom and depressive disorder on glaucoma incidence in elderly

Although depression and glaucoma share several common pathophysiology, the risk of glaucoma in patients with depression has not been reported. Thus, we investigated the effect of depressive symptom and depressive disorder on glaucoma incidence. In this nationwide population-based cohort study, all subjects receiving the National Screening Program at the age of 66 during 2009–2014 were included. These subjects were divided into depression group and no depression group based on subjective depressive symptoms and clinically diagnosed depressive disorder and were tracked until 2017 for development of glaucoma. Of the 922,769 subjects included in the study, 191,636 (20.77%) subjects were categorized as depression group. Subjects with depression showed increased hazard of developing glaucoma (adjusted HR = 1.12[95% confidence interval (CI), 1.09–1.15]) than those without depression. The risk of glaucoma increased sequentially from those with no depression to those with subjective depressive symptom (adjusted HR = 1.09[95% CI, 1.06–1.13]), those with clinically diagnosed depressive disorder (adjusted HR = 1.23[95% CI, 1.14–1.32]), and those with both subjective depressive symptom and clinically diagnosed depressive disorder (adjusted HR = 1.36[95% CI, 1.22–1.52]). Our analyses suggest that individuals with depression had a greater risk of developing glaucoma than those without depression. Subjective depressive symptoms and clinically diagnosed depressive disorder independently and synergistically increased the risk of glaucoma incidence.