Antidepressants have been proposed to act via their influence on emotional processing. We investigated the effect of discontinuing maintenance antidepressant treatment on positive and negative self-referential recall and the association between self-referential recall and risk of relapse.

The ANTLER trial was a large (N = 478) pragmatic double-blind trial investigating the clinical effectiveness of long-term antidepressant treatment for preventing relapse in primary care patients. Participants were randomised to continue their maintenance antidepressants or discontinue via a taper to placebo. We analysed memory for positive and negative personality descriptors, assessed at baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-up.

The recall task was completed by 437 participants. There was no evidence of an effect of discontinuation on self-referential recall at 12 [positive recall ratio 1.00, 95% CI (0.90–1.11), p = 0.93; negative recall ratio 1.00 (0.87–1.14), p = 0.87] or 52 weeks [positive recall ratio 1.03 (0.91–1.17), p = 0.62; negative recall ratio 1.00 (0.86–1.15), p = 0.96; ratios larger than one indicate higher recall in the discontinuation group], and no evidence of an association between recall at baseline or 12 weeks and later relapse [baseline, positive hazard ratio (HR) 1.02 (0.93–1.12), p = 0.74; negative HR 1.01 (0.90–1.13), p = 0.87; 12 weeks, positive HR 0.99 (0.89–1.09), p = 0.81; negative HR 0.98 (0.84–1.14), p = 0.78; ratios larger than one indicate a higher frequency of relapse in those with higher recall].

We found no evidence that discontinuing long-term antidepressants altered self-referential recall or that self-referential recall was associated with risk of relapse. These findings suggest that self-referential recall is not a neuropsychological marker of antidepressant action.

Eating disorders are stigmatised. Little is known about whether stigma has decreased over time and which groups hold more stigmatising beliefs.

To explore whether stigma towards eating disorders has changed between 1998 and 2008 and whether it varies by sociodemographic characteristics.

We used the Office for National Statistics Omnibus surveys 1998 and 2008. As outcomes, we selected four questions eliciting participants’ views on issues of blame and ability to recover, and compared their mean scores across eating disorders, depression and alcohol dependence in both years. We used multivariable linear regressions to investigate associations between sociodemographic characteristics and each stigma domain.

In total, 2720 participants had data on all variables of interest. Compared with 1998, in 2008 stigmatising views towards eating disorders improved. In both years, participants believed it was easier to recover from eating disorders than depression or alcohol dependence. Respondents believed people with eating disorders were more to blame for their condition than those with depression, but less than those with alcohol dependence. Men, those with less formal education, and those from ethnic minority backgrounds were more likely to place greater blame on individuals for their mental illness. Men were more likely than women to think it was possible to recover from an eating disorder.

Stigmatising attitudes towards people with eating disorders have improved over time, but are still greater than those observed for other mental illnesses. Improving eating disorder mental health literacy could help to reduce these negative views and lead to improved quality of life, greater help-seeking and better prognosis.

Catatonia, a severe neuropsychiatric syndrome, has few studies of sufficient scale to clarify its epidemiology or pathophysiology. We aimed to characterise demographic associations, peripheral inflammatory markers and outcome of catatonia.

Electronic healthcare records were searched for validated clinical diagnoses of catatonia. In a case–control study, demographics and inflammatory markers were compared in psychiatric inpatients with and without catatonia. In a cohort study, the two groups were compared in terms of their duration of admission and mortality.

We identified 1456 patients with catatonia (of whom 25.1% had two or more episodes) and 24 956 psychiatric inpatients without catatonia. Incidence was 10.6 episodes of catatonia per 100 000 person-years. Patients with and without catatonia were similar in sex, younger and more likely to be of Black ethnicity. Serum iron was reduced in patients with catatonia [11.6 v. 14.2 μmol/L, odds ratio (OR) 0.65 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.45–0.95), p = 0.03] and creatine kinase was raised [2545 v. 459 IU/L, OR 1.53 (95% CI 1.29–1.81), p < 0.001], but there was no difference in C-reactive protein or white cell count. N-Methyl-d-aspartate receptor antibodies were significantly associated with catatonia, but there were small numbers of positive results. Duration of hospitalisation was greater in the catatonia group (median: 43 v. 25 days), but there was no difference in mortality after adjustment.

In the largest clinical study of catatonia, we found catatonia occurred in approximately 1 per 10 000 person-years. Evidence for a proinflammatory state was mixed. Catatonia was associated with prolonged inpatient admission but not with increased mortality.

Psychotic experiences are reported by 5–10% of young people, although only a minority persist and develop into psychotic disorders. It is unclear what characteristics differentiate those with transient psychotic experiences from those with persistent psychotic experiences that are more likely to be of clinical relevance.

To investigate how longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences, created from assessments at three different time points, are influenced by early life and co-occurring factors.

Using data from 8045 individuals from a birth cohort study, longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences based on semi-structured interviews conducted at 12, 18 and 24 years were defined. Environmental, cognitive, psychopathological and genetic determinants of these profiles were investigated, along with concurrent changes in psychopathology and cognition.

Following multiple imputations, the distribution of longitudinal profiles of psychotic experiences was none (65.7%), transient (24.1%), low-frequency persistent (8.4%) and high-frequency persistent (1.7%). Individuals with high-frequency persistent psychotic experiences were more likely to report traumatic experiences, other psychopathology, a more externalised locus of control, reduced emotional stability and conscientious personality traits in childhood, compared with those with transient psychotic experiences. These characteristics also differed between those who had any psychotic experiences and those who did not.

These findings indicate that the same risk factors are associated with incidence as with persistence of psychotic experiences. Thus, it might be that the severity of exposure, rather than the presence of specific disease-modifying factors, is most likely to determine whether psychotic experiences are transient or persist, and potentially develop into a clinical disorder over time.

This study aimed to investigate general factors associated with prognosis regardless of the type of treatment received, for adults with depression in primary care.

We searched Medline, Embase, PsycINFO and Cochrane Central (inception to 12/01/2020) for RCTs that included the most commonly used comprehensive measure of depressive and anxiety disorder symptoms and diagnoses, in primary care depression RCTs (the Revised Clinical Interview Schedule: CIS-R). Two-stage random-effects meta-analyses were conducted.

Twelve (n = 6024) of thirteen eligible studies (n = 6175) provided individual patient data. There was a 31% (95%CI: 25 to 37) difference in depressive symptoms at 3–4 months per standard deviation increase in baseline depressive symptoms. Four additional factors: the duration of anxiety; duration of depression; comorbid panic disorder; and a history of antidepressant treatment were also independently associated with poorer prognosis. There was evidence that the difference in prognosis when these factors were combined could be of clinical importance. Adding these variables improved the amount of variance explained in 3–4 month depressive symptoms from 16% using depressive symptom severity alone to 27%. Risk of bias (assessed with QUIPS) was low in all studies and quality (assessed with GRADE) was high. Sensitivity analyses did not alter our conclusions.

When adults seek treatment for depression clinicians should routinely assess for the duration of anxiety, duration of depression, comorbid panic disorder, and a history of antidepressant treatment alongside depressive symptom severity. This could provide clinicians and patients with useful and desired information to elucidate prognosis and aid the clinical management of depression.

According to the cognitive neuropsychological model, antidepressants reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety by increasing positive relative to negative information processing. Most studies of whether antidepressants alter emotional processing use small samples of healthy individuals, which lead to low statistical power and selection bias and are difficult to generalise to clinical practice. We tested whether the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) sertraline altered recall of positive and negative information in a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) of patients with depressive symptoms recruited from primary care.

The PANDA trial was a pragmatic multicentre double-blind RCT comparing sertraline with placebo. Memory for personality descriptors was tested at baseline and 2 and 6 weeks after randomisation using a computerised emotional categorisation task followed by a free recall. We measured the number of positive and negative words correctly recalled (hits). Poisson mixed models were used to analyse longitudinal associations between treatment allocation and hits.

A total of 576 participants (88% of those randomised) completed the recall task at 2 and 6 weeks. We found no evidence that positive or negative hits differed according to treatment allocation at 2 or 6 weeks (adjusted positive hits ratio = 0.97, 95% CI 0.90–1.05, p = 0.52; adjusted negative hits ratio = 0.99, 95% CI 0.90–1.08, p = 0.76).

In the largest individual placebo-controlled trial of an antidepressant not funded by the pharmaceutical industry, we found no evidence that sertraline altered positive or negative recall early in treatment. These findings challenge some assumptions of the cognitive neuropsychological model of antidepressant action.

Cognitive mechanisms that characterize or precede depressive symptoms are poorly understood. We investigated cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between risk taking to obtain reward and adolescent depressive symptoms in a large prospective cohort, using the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT). We also explored sex differences.

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is an ongoing UK study, following the lives of 19 000 individuals born 2000/02. The CGT was completed at ages 11 (n = 12 355) and 14 (n = 10 578). Our main exposure was the proportion of points gambled, when the odds of winning were above chance (risk-taking to obtain reward). Outcomes were emotional symptoms (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, SDQ) at age 11 and depressive symptoms (short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire, sMFQ) at age 14. We calculated cross-sectional and longitudinal associations, using linear regressions.

In univariable models, there was evidence of cross-sectional associations between risk-taking and SDQ/sMFQ scores, but these associations disappeared after we adjusted for sex. Longitudinally, there was weak evidence of an association between risk-taking and depressive symptoms in females only [a 20-point increase in risk-taking at age 11 was associated with a reduction of 0.31 sMFQ points at age 14 (95% CI −0.60 to −0.02)]. At both time-points, females were less risk-taking than males.

We found no convincing evidence of a relationship between risk-taking to obtain reward and depressive symptoms. There were large sex differences in risk-taking, but these do not appear to contribute to the female preponderance of depressive symptoms in adolescence.

The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II) and the Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) are widely used in the evaluation of interventions for depression and anxiety. The smallest reduction in depressive symptoms that matter to patients is known as the Minimum Clinically Important Difference (MCID). Little empirical study of the MCID for these scales exists.

A prospective cohort of 400 patients in UK primary care were interviewed on four occasions, 2 weeks apart. At each time point, participants completed all three questionnaires and a ‘global rating of change’ scale (GRS). MCID estimation relied on estimated changes in symptoms according to reported improvement on the GRS scale, stratified by baseline severity on the Clinical Interview Schedule (CIS-R).

For moderate baseline severity, those who reported improvement on the GRS had a reduction of 21% (95% confidence interval (CI) −26.7 to −14.9) on the PHQ-9; 23% (95% CI −27.8 to −18.0) on the BDI-II and 26.8% (95% CI −33.5 to −20.1) on the GAD-7. The corresponding threshold scores below which participants were more likely to report improvement were −1.7, −3.5 and −1.5 points on the PHQ-9, BDI-II and GAD-7, respectively. Patients with milder symptoms require much larger reductions as percentage of their baseline to endorse improvement.

An MCID representing 20% reduction of scores in these scales, is a useful guide for patients with moderately severe symptoms. If treatment had the same effect on patients irrespective of baseline severity, those with low symptoms are unlikely to notice a benefit.

Funding. National Institute for Health Research.

Large population-based cohort studies of neuropsychological factors that characterise or precede depressive symptoms are rare. Most studies use small case-control or cross-sectional designs, which may cause selection bias and cannot test temporality. In a large UK population-based cohort, we investigated cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between inhibitory control of positive and negative information and adolescent depressive symptoms.

Cohort study of 2328 UK adolescents who completed an affective go/no-go task at age 18. Depressive symptoms were assessed with the Clinical Interview Schedule Revised (CIS-R) and short Mood and Feeling Questionnaire (sMFQ) at age 18, and with the sMFQ 1 year later (age 19). Analyses were multilevel and traditional linear regressions, before and after adjusting for confounders.

Cross-sectionally, we found little evidence that adolescents with more depressive symptoms made more inhibitory control errors [after adjustments, errors increased by 0.04% per 1 s.d. increase in sMFQ score (95% confidence interval 0.02–0.06)], but this association was not observed for the CIS-R. There was no evidence for an influence of valence. Longitudinally, there was no evidence that reduced inhibitory control was associated with future depressive symptoms.

Inhibitory control of positive and negative information does not appear to be a marker of current or future depressive symptoms in adolescents and would not be a useful target in interventions to prevent adolescent depression. Our lack of convincing evidence for associations with depressive symptoms suggests that the affective go/no-go task is not a promising candidate for future neuroimaging studies of adolescent depression.

Self-administered questionnaires are widely used in primary care and other clinical settings to assess the severity of depressive symptoms and monitor treatment outcomes. Qualitative studies have found that changes in questionnaire scores might not fully capture patients' experience of changes in their mood but there are no quantitative studies of this issue. We examined the extent to which changes in scores from depression questionnaires disagreed with primary care patients' perceptions of changes in their mood and investigated factors influencing this relationship.

Prospective cohort study assessing patients on four occasions, 2 weeks apart. Patients (N = 554) were recruited from primary care surgeries in three UK sites (Bristol, Liverpool and York) and had reported depressive symptoms or low mood in the past year [68% female, mean age 48.3 (s.d. 12.6)]. Main outcome measures were changes in scores on patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) and beck depression inventory (BDI-II) and the patients' own ratings of change.

There was marked disagreement between clinically important changes in questionnaire scores and patient-rated change, with disagreement of 51% (95% CI 46–55%) on PHQ-9 and 55% (95% CI 51–60%) on BDI-II. Patients with more severe anxiety were less likely, and those with better mental and physical health-related quality of life were more likely, to report feeling better, having controlled for depression scores.

Our results illustrate the limitations of self-reported depression scales to assess clinical change. Clinicians should be cautious in interpreting changes in questionnaire scores without further clinical assessment.

It has been hypothesised that refugees have an increased risk of suicide.

To investigate whether risk of suicide is higher among refugees compared with non-refugee migrants from the same areas of origin and with the Swedish-born population, and to examine whether suicide rates among migrants converge to the Swedish-born population over time.

A population-based cohort design using linked national registers to follow 1 457 898 people born between 1 January 1970 and 31 December 1984, classified by migrant status as refugees, non-refugee migrants or Swedish-born. Participants were followed from their 16th birthday or date of arrival in Sweden until death, emigration or 31 December 2015, whichever came first. Cox regression models estimated adjusted hazard ratios for suicide by migrant status, controlling for age, gender, region of origin and income.

There were no significant differences in suicide risk between refugee and non-refugee migrants (hazard ratio 1.28, 95% CI 0.93–1.76) and both groups had a lower risk of suicide than Swedish born. During their first 5 years in Sweden no migrants died by suicide; however, after 21–31 years their suicide risk was equivalent to the Swedish-born population (hazard ratio 0.94, 95% CI 0.79–1.22). After adjustment for income this risk was significantly lower for migrants than the Swedish-born population.

Being a refugee was not an additional risk factor for suicide. Our findings regarding temporal changes in suicide risk suggest that acculturation and socioeconomic deprivation may account for a convergence of suicide risk between migrants and the host population over time.

None.

Peripheral low-grade inflammation in depression is increasingly seen as a therapeutic target. We aimed to establish the prevalence of low-grade inflammation in depression, using different C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, through a systematic literature review and meta-analysis.

We searched the PubMed database from its inception to July 2018, and selected studies that assessed depression using a validated tool/scale, and allowed the calculation of the proportion of patients with low-grade inflammation (CRP >3 mg/L) or elevated CRP (>1 mg/L).

After quality assessment, 37 studies comprising 13 541 depressed patients and 155 728 controls were included. Based on the meta-analysis of 30 studies, the prevalence of low-grade inflammation (CRP >3 mg/L) in depression was 27% (95% CI 21–34%); this prevalence was not associated with sample source (inpatient, outpatient or population-based), antidepressant treatment, participant age, BMI or ethnicity. Based on the meta-analysis of 17 studies of depression and matched healthy controls, the odds ratio for low-grade inflammation in depression was 1.46 (95% CI 1.22–1.75). The prevalence of elevated CRP (>1 mg/L) in depression was 58% (95% CI 47–69%), and the meta-analytic odds ratio for elevated CRP in depression compared with controls was 1.47 (95% CI 1.18–1.82).

About a quarter of patients with depression show evidence of low-grade inflammation, and over half of patients show mildly elevated CRP levels. There are significant differences in the prevalence of low-grade inflammation between patients and matched healthy controls. These findings suggest that inflammation could be relevant to a large number of patients with depression.

Two longitudinal studies have shown that depressive symptoms in women with eating disorders might improve in the antenatal and early postnatal periods. No study has followed up women beyond 8 months postnatal.

To investigate long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms in mothers with lifetime self-reported eating disorders.

Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and multilevel growth curves we modelled trajectories of depressive symptoms from the 18th week of pregnancy to 18 years postnatal in women with lifetime self-reported anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. As sensitivity analyses we also investigated these trajectories using quintiles of a continuous measure of body image in pregnancy.

Of the 9276 women in our main sample, 126 (1.4%) reported a lifetime diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, 153 (1.6%) of bulimia nervosa and 60 (0.6%) of both anorexia and bulimia nervosa. Women with lifetime eating disorders had greater depressive symptoms scores than women with no eating disorders, before and after adjustment for confounders (anorexia nervosa: 2.10, 95% CI 1.36–2.83; bulimia nervosa: 2.28, 95% CI: 1.61–2.94, both anorexia and bulimia nervosa: 2.86, 95% CI 1.81–3.90). We also observed a dose–response association between greater body image and eating concerns in pregnancy and more severe trajectories of depressive symptoms, even after adjusting for lifetime eating disorders which also remained independently associated with greater depressive symptoms.

Women with eating disorders experience persistently greater depressive symptoms across the life-course. More training for practitioners and midwives on how to recognise eating disorders in pregnancy could help to identify depressive symptoms and reduce the long-term burden of disease resulting from this comorbidity.

Prenatal infections have been proposed as a putative risk factor for a number of psychiatric outcomes across a continuum of severity. Evidence on eating disorders is scarce. We investigated whether exposure to prenatal maternal infections is associated with an increased risk of disordered eating and weight and shape concerns in adolescence in a large UK birth cohort.

We used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. The primary exposure was maternal experience of infections at any time in pregnancy. Study outcomes were presence of any, monthly or weekly disordered eating at 14 and 16 years of age, and weight and shape concerns at 14 years. We defined the causal effect of the exposure on these outcomes using a counterfactual framework adjusting our analyses for a number of hypothesised confounders, and imputing missing confounder data using multiple imputation.

In total, 4884 children had complete exposure and outcome data at age 14 years, and 4124 at 16 years. Exposed children had a greater risk of reporting weekly disordered eating at both age 14 [risk difference (RD) 0.9%, 95% confidence interval (CI) −0.01 to 1.9, p = 0.08] and 16 (RD 2.3%, 95% CI 0.6–3.9, p < 0.01), though evidence of an association was weak at age 14 years. Exposed children also had greater weight and shape concerns at age 14 years (mean difference 0.15, 95% CI 0.05–0.26, p < 0.01).

Exposure to prenatal maternal infection is associated with greater risk of disordered eating in adolescence. This association could be explained by in utero processes leading to impaired neurodevelopment or altered immunological profiles. Residual confounding cannot be excluded.

Recent studies suggest psychotic and eating disorders can be comorbid and could have shared genetic liability. However, this comorbidity has been overlooked in the epidemiological literature.

To test whether polygenic risk scores (PRS) for schizophrenia are associated with disordered eating behaviours and body mass index (BMI) in the general population.

Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and random-effects logistic and linear regression models, we investigated the association between PRS for schizophrenia and self-reported disordered eating behaviours (binge eating, purging, fasting and excessive exercise) and BMI at 14, 16 and 18 years.

Of the 6920 children with available genetic data, 4473 (64.6%) and 5069 (73.3%) had at least one disordered eating and one BMI outcome measurement, respectively. An s.d. increase in PRS was associated with greater odds of having binge eating behaviours (odds ratio, 1.36; 95% CI 1.16–1.60) and lower BMI (coefficient, −0.03; 95% CI, −0.06 to −0.01).

Our findings suggest the presence of shared genetic risk between schizophrenia and binge eating behaviours. Intermediate phenotypes such as impaired social cognition and irritability, previously shown to be positively correlated in this sample with schizophrenia PRS, could represent risk factors for both phenotypes. Shared genetic liability between binge eating and schizophrenia could also explain higher rates of metabolic syndrome in individuals with schizophrenia, as binge eating could be a mediator of this association in drug-naïve individuals. The finding of an association between greater PRS and lower BMI, although consistent with existing epidemiological and genetic literature, requires further investigation.

None.