Active disease is independently associated with more severe anxiety rather than depressive symptoms in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

Objective The inter-correlation between and co-existence of depression and anxiety may engender inconsistency in addressing the relationship between the severity of depression and disease activity of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). We aimed at identifying whether lupus disease activity is independently associated with depression and anxiety in lupus patients. Methods Adult lupus patients were assessed for the severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms and lupus disease activity by using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI), respectively. Age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited for comparison. Prevalence and severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms were compared between lupus patients and HCs. Independent relationships between the severity of anxiety (HADS-Anxiety) and depressive (HADS-Depression) symptoms, and SLEDAI were studied with regression models. Results In total, 110 lupus patients and 110 HCs were studied. Lupus patients had significantly higher HADS scores than HCs (10.826.5 vs 7.34 +/- 4.9, p<0.001). Significantly more lupus patients had anxiety (40.9 vs 21.8%, p=0.002) and depressive symptoms (15.5 vs 6.4%, p=0.025) than HCs. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that SLEDAI (=0.160, p=0.016), calcineurin inhibitor non-use (=-1.929, p=0.041) and past cyclophosphamide non-use (=-1.603, p=0.039) independently predicted HADS-Anxiety amongst lupus patients even after adjusting for HADS-Depression. Conversely, SLEDAI (=0.014, p=0.834) lost its significant univariate correlation with HADS-Depression after controlling for HADS-Anxiety and other covariates. Conclusion Anxiety is more common in lupus patients than in HCs, and its severity is independently associated with more active SLE regardless of the presence or absence of concomitant depression.