AUTHOR=Zihao Liang , Jinyun Song , Shuanglin Gu , Xiuzhen Chen , Yonglin Li , Hongyu Zhao TITLE=The relationship between COVID-19, depressive disorder, and anxiety: a bidirectional Mendelian randomization study JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry VOLUME=14 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1257553 DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1257553 ISSN=1664-0640 ABSTRACT=Background

Previous clinical studies have found that negative mental states such as depression and anxiety are closely related to COVID-19 infection. We used Mendelian randomization (MR) to explore the relationship between depression, anxiety, and COVID-19 infection.

Methods

Our data were based on publicly available GWAS databases. The COVID-19 samples were obtained from the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (HGI). The depression samples were obtained from the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). The anxiety samples were derived from the Finngen database. We used inverse-variance weighting (IVW) as the primary analysis method, with weighted median, MR Egger, and multivariate MRI adjustment.

Results

There was no causal effect of different COVID-19 infection statuses on depression and anxiety as determined by MR analysis. In addition, in the reverse MR analysis, we found a significant causal effect of anxiety on severe symptoms after COVID-19 infection. The results of the MR Egger regression, weighted median, and weighted mode methods were consistent with the IVW method. Based on sensitivity analyses, horizontal pleiotropy was unlikely to influence the final results.

Conclusion

Our findings indicate that anxiety is a risk factor for severe symptoms following COVID-19 infection. However, the mechanism of interaction between the two needs further investigation.