The association of depression with use of prescription drugs in adults with noncommunicable diseases: based on NHANES in 2005-2016

Abstract Background It is not clear how the noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) performed in the association of depression with use of prescription drugs. Methods This cross-sectional study involved 20,836 participants with at least one NCDs who aged over 20 years old in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2005–2016. Ordinal logistic regression under complex sampling was used to examine the association of depression with use of prescription drugs in patients with different categories of NCDs. Result Among patients with respiratory diseases (OR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.13–1.76), genitourinary diseases (OR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.28–1.98), and cardiovascular diseases (OR: 1.43, 95% CI: 1.27–1.60), the risk of depression was higher among those who used prescription drugs than those who did not. The results showed that the association of depression with use of prescription drugs was significantly stronger, especially in patients with genitourinary diseases ≥65 years of age (OR: 1.91, 95% CI: 1.01–3.61). Trend analysis showed that the categories of prescription drugs used and the risk of depression was significantly statistically different (P for trend Limitations Self-reported prevalence of depression may differ from actual prevalence of depression. The categories of NCDs studied in this article are limited and the association between specific drugs and depression is not analyzed. Conclusions In patients with NCDs, use of prescription drugs increased the risk of depression, and this risk increased significantly, especially in patients with genitourinary diseases who aged over 65 years. The risk of depression was increasing with the categories of prescription drugs used.