Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Vallerand, Isabelle
• Frolkis, Alexandra D
• Patten, Scott
• Kaplan, Gilaad G

Titel

Changing trends in coding for depression among the UK IBD population: reply from authors

Ist Teil von

• Gut, 2020-03, Vol.69 (3), p.607-607

Ort / Verlag

England: BMJ Publishing Group LTD

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Correspondence to Dr Gilaad G Kaplan, Medicine and Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Alberta, T2N 4Z6, Canada; ggkaplan@ucalgary.ca We thank Blackwell et al 1 for raising an important question about the classification of depression in a population of IBD patients in the UK. In our study,examining depression as a risk factor for the development of IBD,2 we chose to use a more restrictive case definition of depression based closely on a definition of major depressive disorder (MDD) as a clinically significant form of depression recognised in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)3 and known to be associated with a significant degree of morbidity and mortality.4 5 In contrast, we chose not to employ a case definition based on symptom codes, as these may or may not be clinically significant and may not be persistent over time. Since our objective was to investigate whether an exposure to MDD was associated with a significantly increased risk of IBD and we were most interested in studying the exposure effects of a pathological mental illness with symptoms that are expected to be persistent enough (ie over at least a 2 week period as per the DSM-5 definition of MDD) to possibly induce inflammatory changes leading to the development of IBD. [...]our estimates may even be slightly diluted. [...]it is important to acknowledge that our findings may be more relevant to a population that is afflicted with more severe depression (ie those coded for MDD rather than mood related symptoms).