Introduction

Depressive disorders are ubiquitous and constitute a substantial source of morbidity and mortality in the United States and other developed nations; almost every health care provider will encounter a patient with some form of depression during his or her career [1–3]. By a recent World Health Organization (WHO) estimate, depressive disorders affect more than 264 million people worldwide and are among one of the leading causes of non-fatal health loss as measured by years lost to disability [4]. Many of the affective disorders have an average age of onset during adolescence, but continue to comprise a large portion of psychiatric pathology throughout adulthood [5, 6]. Developing a better understanding of this class of diseases and how they evolve over the lifespan remains an important goal with implications for prognosis and treatment of patients.

While the Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) does not separate major depressive disorder in adolescents from that in adults, some differences have been described between depressive disorders in these age cohorts. In the DSM-5 itself, it is noted that children and adolescents may present clinically with primarily irritable, rather than depressed, mood as is often seen in adults [7]. Other studies have identified further differences between adolescent and adult depression, including more behavior disturbances and less hypersomnia in adolescents [8]. Psychopharmacologic effectiveness also differs between adult and youth depression, with one systematic review of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in the treatment of major depression in children in adolescents finding that fluoxetine alone showed consistent efficacy, while most agents have demonstrated effect in adults [9]. Finally, some recent genetic results report that genome-wide significant risk variants differ between adult- and earlier-onset major depressive disorder, with earlier-onset depression having a genetic architecture more similar to that of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder [10].

Evidence for differences in the presentation, treatment, and genetics of major depressive disorder in adults and youth justifies further examination of the nosology of the disorder in the context of patient age. Psychopathological classification has evolved significantly over the past century, and refinement continues as new observations are integrated into existing knowledge [11]. Major depression, like most psychiatric disease, is deeply embedded in the psychological, social, and developmental context in which it occurs. Targeted efforts examining age-dependent biopsychosocial factors in depression have yielded durable information about risk factors for depression. For example, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and social support have both been reported to modify risk of developing a depressive disorder [12, 13]. However, the inherent complexity of social and psychological factors remains a major challenge facing these targeted studies examining depressive disorders. Traditional hypothesis-testing approaches require a fairly narrow a priori definition of scope, often leveraging investigator experience and qualitative research to identify themes worth fleshing out. To date, quantitative approaches to screening for factors of potential interest remain underdeveloped in the field of depressive disorders.

This study uses an association study design to identify targets of interest for further investigation of the differentiation between youth and adult major depression. Association studies have been widely used in other fields, especially in genetics, and employ a simple study design. At a high level, association studies examine the relative frequencies of a given variable in cases versus controls, and express these frequencies as an odds ratio with some confidence interval. In genetics, genome-wide association studies have provided compelling insight by scanning large amounts of data for effects, and best practices for such studies have been well developed [14]. This study uses past-year self-reported major depressive episode (MDE) as the measure of case-ness, and calculates associations "survey-wide" for each dichotomous variable in the 2017 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). This study screened only dichotomous variables to streamline statistical analysis within the association study framework, but in the future this approach might be expanded to include additional data types such as continuous time or Likert-type variables. While hypothesis-driven case-control studies carefully control for confounding and limit the number of exposures examined, the author's association study design hopes to provide a broader, albeit less granular, picture of disease-associated phenotypes to inform hypothesis testing. This method serves as a low-cost, logistically expedient adjunct to hypothesis-driven studies; the author's analytical code and variable type classification have been made freely available and are ready for adaptation by other researchers.

The overall goal of this study was to increase the breadth of age-dependent characterization of major depression using large-scale association analysis. The hope is that using this design would better leverage the significant data volume available in public survey datasets for the analysis of phenotypic diversity across a wide range of variables. To the author's knowledge, this study represents the first large-scale association study of the youth-specific correlates of major depressive episodes. This analysis was able to reproduce some youth-specific associations that have been previously described in the literature, and identify some new ones. Additionally, this study was able to provide a quantitative benchmark for the degree of concordance between measured drug use and mental health parameters in a survey between adult and youth with past year MDE.

Methods

Description of study population and data

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) is directed annually by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). The survey administrators randomly select household addresses and professional interviewers are used to collect data to ensure that results are high quality and representative of the United States population [15]. This study used the 2017 version of the survey [16], which collected 2,668 variables from 56,275 participants across 50 states and the District of Columbia (Table 1). The survey included both youths (aged 12–17 years) and adults (aged 18+ years) in its direct data collection. To access the survey data programmatically, the author created a specification file identifying all dichotomous variables in the survey as an input for downstream analysis. Occurrence of past-year MDE was identified on the NSDUH if a respondent reported having at least 5 out of the 9 symptomatic criteria (Table 1), where at least one of the criteria was depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities.

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Table 1. Demographic summary of 2017 NSDUH responses.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232373.t001

Results

After processing the 1,440 variables classified as dichotomous, 781 (54%) had a Bonferroni-corrected odds ratio confidence interval less than 3 orders of magnitude in width. The remainder of the variables were discarded, as insufficient data was present to estimate the odds ratio of these variables against past year MDE with a high degree of confidence in either the youth or the adult cohort. Reasons for insufficient data included questions that pertained only to youth or adult experience (e.g. school or work-related experiences) or a low number of respondents (e.g. heroin abuse in youth). Plotted against each other, the logarithm of odds ratios for variables with sufficiently narrow confidence intervals show high correlation (Fig 1). A linear model fit to the relationship between the adult and youth logarithm of odds ratio for all variables showed high correlation between youth and adult associations and high predictability for the model (slope = 0.95±0.02, intercept = -0.01±0.01, R² = 0.82, p < 0.001). Lin's concordance correlation coefficient between adult and youth associations was 0.91 (95% CI 0.89–0.92), showing moderate to excellent concordance between youth and adult odds ratios [23].

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Fig 1. Overview of calculated odds ratios.

Logarithm of the odds ratio for each variable against past-year MDE in the youth (aged 12–17 years) cohort plotted against logarithm of the odds ratio in the adult (aged 18+ years) cohort shows most variables similarly correlated. Variables where the size of the confidence interval was greater than 3 were discarded.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232373.g001

While most variables showed a high degree of concordance, 14 variables were found to have statistically significantly different association with youth and adult past-year MDE. Broadly, these differentially associated variables (DAVs) corresponded to: biological sex, Medicaid/CHIP status, tobacco use, drug and alcohol use, and characteristics of depressive episodes. While 3 variables were found to have a higher degree of association with adult MDE than youth MDE, the remaining 11 variables showed greater association with youth MDE (Fig 2). DAVs could be further segmented into variables where associations in the youth and adult cohorts were in the same direction but differed in strength (quantitative difference), and those where only a single cohort displayed significant association (qualitative difference). Qualitative differences were observed in variables tracking past-month alcohol use, Medicaid/CHIP status, marijuana use alone, and whether a single depressive incident could be picked out as the worst ever experienced.

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Fig 2. Differentially associated variables in youth and adult depression.

Logarithm of the odds ratio for differentially associated variables with 99.99% confidence intervals. Hierarchical clustering generated by Jaccard distance index and complete-linkage clustering groups variables into related sets. *Condition was defined as either a physical, mental, or emotional condition.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232373.g002

Reported difficulty concentrating, remembering or making decisions due to a physical, mental, or emotional condition had the greatest association among DAVs with both youth and adult MDE (OR = 4.79, p < 1e-10 and OR = 11.49, p < 1e-10 respectively) but was more associated with adults. Recalling a single depressive incident as the worst ever was more associated with youth than adults (OR = 3.50, p < 1e-10 and OR = 1.19, p = 1.9e-4). Several alcohol and tobacco use associated DAVs were identified, all with stronger MDE association in youth as compared to adults. Odds ratios estimates for cigarette-use related variables were closely clustered, ranging from 1.44 to 1.53 in adults as compared to 2.56 in youth (all p < 1e-10). Female sex was also more correlated with MDE in youth as compared to adults (OR = 3.39, p < 1e-10 and OR = 1.82, p < 1e-10 respectively). Alcohol use DAVs showed more spread in adults, with odds ratio estimates varying from 1.33 (p = 2.3e-4) to 1.77 (p < 1e-10), as compared to 2.01 to 2.61 in youth (all p < 1e-10). Marijuana use alone was associated with MDE in youth, but not in adults (OR = 1.8, p < 1e-10 and OR = 0.95, p = 0.24). Conversely, Medicaid / CHIP coverage was associated with MDE in adults but not in youth (OR = 1.61, p < 1e-10 and OR = 0.99, p = 0.80).

A Gaussian kernel density plot of recalled age of first MDE amongst adult respondents with past-year MDE shows a bimodal distribution for respondents greater than 26 years of age (Fig 3). In each age group, a peak is observed between 15 and 18 years old; a large portion of respondents with recent MDE recall their first MDE occurring during late youth.

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Fig 3. Recalled age of first depressive episode by birth cohort.

Gaussian kernel density plot of age of first MDE in respondents with a past-year MDE segmented by age of respondents. A bimodal distribution is observed in 26–34, 35–49 and 50+ categories, with first MDE either in late youth (approximately 17 years old) or closer to respondent age.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232373.g003

Discussion

While a high concordance rate was calculated between per-variable association with youth and adult past-year MDE, only a little over half of the dichotomous variables screened in the survey met inclusion criteria for analysis after Bonferroni multiple comparisons correction. Because of its novel approach to association screening in large surveys, this study remains conservative with statistical bounds on generated estimates, while also weighing the dangers of exclusion bias [24]. While the variables that had sufficient measurements of responses to yield tight odds ratio estimates showed a general trend towards concordance in association between youth and adult past-year MDE, examination of these variables alone restricts this study's analysis to phenotypic parameters that are broadly applicable and for which both states measured are present in approximately equal frequency. At least one very significant known correlate of depression, suicide, does not meet these criteria, and would be poorly examined by this study design [25]. To generate more power for future analyses, data could be integrated across multiple years of the NSDUH or across multiple disparate data sources. Merging data must be done carefully in the screening design to ensure that differences in survey semantics across years do not generate artefacts.

Despite the aforementioned limitations of this study's methodology, the analysis shows a high degree of similarity between youth and adult depression, at least among variables measured in the NSDUH. The calculated concordance coefficient of 0.91 (95% CI 0.89–0.92) and moderate to good predictability of a fitted linear model (R² = 0.82, p < 0.001) support this interpretation. These findings are consistent with previous descriptions of major depression as a disease where symptoms are mostly independent of patient age, but not entirely so [26–28]. Taken together, these data suggest that within the spectrum of data captured by dichotomous variables in the NSDUH, the phenotypic correlates of youth and adult depression are mostly similar. However, even with the strict multiple comparisons correction and significance criteria imposed by the survey-wide association procedure, some variables demonstrated clear differences by age and deserve further examination.

The differentially associated variables identified in this survey-wide association study could be grouped into a few key categories: female sex, Medicaid/CHIP status, alcohol use, cigarette use, marijuana use, cognitive symptoms, and perceived MDE severity. Of these, female sex, alcohol use, and cigarette use are well-described as correlates of depression in youth [29–35]. The association of marijuana use with MDEs in youths has some evidence, but is not as well-documented as the aforementioned correlates. Finally, this study identified novel correlates differentially associated with MDE in youth as compared with adults: Medicaid/CHIP status, cognitive symptoms (difficulty concentrating, remembering and making decisions), as well as the perception that one particular MDE was the worst ever experienced.

The effects of cannabis use have been an area of active interest as policymakers navigate changing regulations and social perceptions around use. Previous work in both humans and animal models found that cannabis exposure may have an effect on development in the brain–increased exposure is associated with reduced prefrontal and parietal gyrification in adolescents [36, 37]. Longitudinal MRI studies show that myelinogenesis and dendritic pruning drive changes in the adolescent brain from the onset of puberty to 24 years of age [38]. In addition to pharmacological effects, cannabis use may also function as an externalized indicator of social state. Social perception of cannabis has become increasingly positive in recent years; laws have passed in several U.S. states legalizing marijuana use for medical and recreational purposes [39]. Recent studies have also reported declining perception of risk associated with cannabis use [40]. As social perception and norms shift, a better understanding of the relative contribution of social and pharmacological factors will be needed to improve youth depression screening.

Healthcare coverage by Medicaid and/or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) showed qualitative changes in this study's screen; coverage is associated with adult MDE but not with youth MDE. Medicaid/CHIP jointly provide health services for low-income Americans and those with disabilities. Medicaid and CHIP's mental health services represent a significant portion of total spending in these programs, with Medicaid spending for enrollees with a behavior health diagnosis totaling approximately 85 billion USD in 2011 [41]. Medicaid and CHIP are programs intended to serve low-income patients known to be at increased risk for major depressive disorder in adulthood, as replicated by this study's data [42]. In the rich literature examining the links between familial socioeconomic and environmental factors with depression, complexity is the rule, and a clear association has not yet been described [43, 44]. While Medicaid/CHIP enrollment for children is not the ideal barometer for measuring socioeconomic status, the results suggest the absence of a robust relationship between childhood depression and familial socioeconomic status, and add to the dialogue in this debated area.

The symptom cluster of major depressive disorder is often characterized as consisting of affective, cognitive, and vegetative components, where affective symptoms are noted as potentially presenting atypically in adolescence [7, 45]. This study identified that a reported serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions due to a physical, mental, or emotional condition was less associated with youth MDE than adult MDE. The symptoms measured by the variable are cognitive in nature, and may suggest underlying differences in presentation between cognitive symptoms in major depressive episodes in youth as compared with adults. However, when asked specifically about ability to think, concentrate, or make decisions during an MDE, youth reported impairment in slightly greater proportion (Table 1). Alternatively, the wide gap in association between youth and adults in the cognitive variable identified in this study's screen may be due to decreased attribution of cognitive changes to physical, mental or emotional conditions. Decreased attribution of changes in this manner may impact the psychometric properties of screening batteries for youth depression.

Finally, the finding that ability to pick out a single "worst" MDE was more associated with youth than adults demonstrates the need for careful assessment of variables for potential biases. This finding may suggest that youth depression follows a more turbulent course than adult depression, having more variation in symptoms apparent to patients. Major depressive disorder follows a course which often includes variation of symptoms over time, partial remission, and relapse [46]. In such a disease course, more exaggerated symptoms could occur during an age of peak onset such as adolescence. However, determining a single MDE as the worst may be affected by recall bias, and confounded by the number of MDE events experienced over the course of a respondent's lifetime. As older patients with longer disease course are more likely to have experienced more MDEs over a longer period of time, these factors should be corrected for before variable effect can be assessed. Unfortunately, as the public NSDUH dataset does not contain the exact age of each respondent, further studies with different datasets will be required to better assess this potential association while correctly correcting for confounders.

In addition to the primary survey-wide association study findings, a Gaussian kernel density plot for the recalled age of MDE onset was generated from NSDUH data to further characterize differences in depression presentation over the lifespan. The plot generated shows a strikingly consistent bimodal distribution, with peaks between 15 and 18 years old indicating that in the NSDUH dataset, a large proportion of respondents in each age cohort with a past-year MDE recall their first event as occurring during youth. Furthermore, co-location of peaks across groups suggests that, while subject to recall bias, these results are indicative of a true signal–that "adolescence" is a key time point in the progression of major depressive disorder [5]. Notably, the bimodal distribution identified in the NSDUH dataset is different from the fairly linear increase in depression prevalence reported in the epidemiological study cited by the DSM-5 [7, 47]. While interpretation of this study's results should be tempered by the potential for bias, they nevertheless support continuing exploration of phenotype in these disorders with an eye towards elucidating pathophysiology.

While the approach used by this study provides a novel strategy to identify associations, it also has significant limitations. Due to a lack of machine-readable data types for many surveys, the initial data curation requires labor-intensive manual classification. Complex organization of survey data requires correction for internal correlations as well as careful post-hoc analysis and grouping of variables identified by association techniques. The cross-sectional design of this study prevents identification of cause and effect relationships. Additionally, because this study does not semantically categorize variables prior to association screening, some variables identified may not be fully comparable between cohorts (e.g. cigarette use prior to age 18). As such, associations identified in this study's screen must be examined critically for possible confounding factors and confirmed by independent investigations using hypothesis-based approaches. Finally, the need for strict false-discovery corrections reduces the power of an association-based study design, and some true associations may not have met the study's calling thresholds; absence of evidence should not be treated as evidence of absence. Despite these limitations in the interpretation of particular results, this study's survey-wide association screening approach allowed for examination over a much wider breadth of variables than typically interrogated. As data availability continues to improve and coding standards continue to develop, approaches like these will continue to become more viable and more valuable.

This study has utilized a survey-wide association approach to identify youth-specific correlates of major depressive episodes from data gathered in the 2017 NSDUH. By first codifying types and valid values for data gathered in the survey, this study's screen was able to confirm several previously described risk factors for youth depression and also to identify new ones. The new associations identified in marijuana use, cognitive impairment, and time-varying severity of disease may help to better define the pathophysiology of major depression in youth as compared with its adult incarnation. With a better understanding of disease classification and natural history, healthcare providers might be better equipped to deliver accurate prognoses and design effective treatments for patients both young and old with this common and debilitating condition.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Andrés Martin and Dr. James Leckman for their thoughtful discussions, support, and mentorship.