Genetic Susceptibility to Depression and the Role of Partnership Status

Maria Gültzow , Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
Hannu Lahtinen, University of Helsinki
Maarten J. Bijlsma, 2. Unit PharmacoEpidemiology & PharmacoEconomics (PE2), Department of Pharmacy, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
Mikko Myrskylä, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Pekka Martikainen, University of Helsinki

Background: Social relationships and genetic predisposition are known to affect depression risk, but their joint effects are poorly understood. We investigate to what extent the link between the polygenic risk for depression and time to antidepressant purchasing is moderated by partnership status. Methods: We study 30,192 Finnish individuals who participated in the FINRISK and HEALTH surveys and have register and medication data available. We assess genetic risk with a polygenic risk score (PGS) for depression. Depression was assessed through whether an individual purchased antidepressants at least once in the past year. We perform an accelerated failure time model with partnership status as time-varying and different sets of confounder adjustments. Results: 23.4% of individuals purchased antidepressants during follow-up. Including only the main terms for PGS and partnership status, being widowed is associated with the largest cumulative incidence of 19.97 (95%CI: 16.65-22.93) in the 20th and 33.58 (95%CI: 28.39-38.77) in the 80th PGS percentile at year 10, followed by divorced, single, married and cohabiting. Including an interaction term between PGS and partnership status results in only marginal changes in the predicted cumulative hazard. Results are robust to different model specifications, gender stratification, the choice of PGS, and selection into partnership status based on the PGS (endogenous selection bias). Conclusion: While we found antidepressant purchasing to be associated with PGS and partnership status, we did not find evidence for an interaction between these factors.

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 Presented in Session 34. Determinants of Depression