Korean J Psychosom Med.  2021 Jun;29(1):42-48. 10.22722/KJPM.2021.29.1.42.

Effects of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms on Specific Cognitive Function by Evaluating Healthy Subjects

• Kim K
• Nam YY
• Han J
• Yu R
• Ryu V

• KMID: 2524481
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.22722/KJPM.2021.29.1.42

Abstract

Objectives
：Based on the fact that cognitive functions decline known as comorbid symptoms of depression can precede depression, this study seeks to observe the effects of depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms on cognitive function in healthy subjects.
Methods
：To recruit 50 general populations to evaluate cognitive and clinical symptoms and to find out the effects of clinical symptoms on cognitive functions, Pearson correlation and multivariate regression were conducted. Correlation analysis of subdomain cognitive function was conducted for reliability analysis.
Results
：Trail making test-B that evaluates the execution function correlates with depressive symptoms (r=0.300, p=0.03) and age (r=0.323, p=0.02). Depressive symptoms (β=0.304, p=0.03) and age (β=0.335, p=0.01) were significantly related to Trail making test -B (Adjusted R² =0.148). Subjective cognitive tests correlates with anxiety symptoms (r=0.434, p=0.002). In the correlation between cognitive functional items, Subjective cognitive tests was found to be correlated with other test except Spotter.
Conclusions
：In this study, depressive symptoms contribute independently to executive functions in addition to demographic characteristics such as age and duration of education. Given that cognitive decline is a common long-term clinical outcome in depression, we expect active early intervention and evaluation of cognitive function to be helpful.

Keyword

Depressive symptom; Anxious symptoms; Depression; Cognitive function