1. Main and moderated effects of multimorbidity and depressive symptoms on cognition.
- Author
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de Araujo JAP, Xavier ÉFM, Rodrigues EDS, Machado DB, Barreto ME, Kanaan RA, Barreto ML, and Castro-de-Araujo LFS
- Subjects
- Humans, Quality of Life psychology, Chronic Disease, Cognition, Depression epidemiology, Depression psychology, Multimorbidity
- Abstract
Objective: Multimorbidity, or the occurrence of two or more chronic conditions, is a global challenge, with implications for mortality, morbidity, disability, and life quality. Psychiatric disorders are common among the chronic diseases that affect patients with multimorbidity. It is still not well understood whether psychiatric symptoms, especially depressive symptoms, moderate the effect of multimorbidity on cognition., Methods: We used a large (n=2,681) dataset to assess whether depressive symptomatology moderates the effect of multimorbidity on cognition using structural equation modelling., Results: It was found that the more depressive symptoms and chronic conditions, the worse the cognitive performance, and the higher the educational level, the better the cognitive performance. We found a significant but weak (0.009; p = 0.04) moderating effect., Conclusion: We have provided the first estimate of the moderating effect of depression on the relation between multimorbidity and cognition, which was small. Although this moderation has been implied by many previous studies, it was never previously estimated., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
- Published
- 2022
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