Prospective association between depressive symptoms and stroke risk among middle-aged and older Chinese

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to assess the association between baseline symptoms and changes in depressive symptoms and stroke incidents. METHODS: We used data from the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study conducted in 2013, 2015, and 2018. In total, 10,100 individuals aged ≥45 years and without a history of stroke in 2013 were included. Depressive symptoms were measured using the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studied Depression scale (elevated depressive symptoms cutoff ≥10). Changes of depressive symptoms were assessed by two successive surveys (stable low/no, recent onset, recently remitted, and stable high depressive symptoms). We assessed whether baseline depressive symptoms and changes of them were associated with stroke incidents reported through 2018. Logistic regression analyses adjusted for age, gender, education, marital status and other potential confounders were performed. RESULTS: For the analysis of baseline depressive symptoms and stroke (n = 10,100), 545 (5.4%) reported stroke incidents in the following 5-year period. Individuals with elevated depressive symptoms in 2013 experienced a markedly higher stroke risk (odds ratio (OR) = 1.53, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.28–1.84) compared with those without elevated depressive symptoms. In the analysis of changes in depressive symptoms (n = 8491, 430 (5.1%) stroke events), participants with stable high (OR = 2.01, 95% CI = 1.58–2.56) and recent-onset (OR = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.04–1.85) depressive symptoms presented higher stroke risk compared to those with stable low/no depressive symptoms, while recently remitted symptoms (OR = 1.12, 95% CI = 0.80–1.57) were not associated with stroke risk. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, stable high and newly started depressive symptoms were associated with increased stroke risk, whereas the improvement of depressive symptoms was not related to increase in stroke risk, suggesting that stroke risk may be decreased by effective management of depressive symptoms. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-021-03492-9.