Approved research

Common Mental Disorder and its Correlates in UK Biobank

Lay summary

Using the mental health questionnaire, baseline data, and data linkage we will characterise mental disorder in the whole UKB with a view to identifying phenotypes of common mental disorder (CMD), taking into account symptoms, longitudinal course and severity. We would like to use actigraphy data to further characterise phenotypes of CMD in this subset. CMD often co-occur with physical disorder, sensory and cognitive impairment. We would like to study the association with CMD as risk factor and outcome. We will examine suggested biological correlates of CMD in biomarkers and genotypes. Over one third of participants in the UK Biobank (UKB) are likely to have suffered from a common mental disorder (CMD), at some point in their lives, including depression, anxiety and alcohol misuse. We will estimate the impact of CMD on health and well-being, and explore targets for further study. People with severe mental illness die earlier than their peers due to physical disease, associated with less treatment for their physical disease. We would like to see how this extends to CMD. Insights may lead to new opportunities improving health. We will need access to information from baseline (history/examination), the mental health questionnaire and data linkages. We will use conventional mental health diagnostic categories, and also use cluster analysis to investigate other ways of understanding mental disorder. We will perform regression analysis (tests of association) between physical and mental health categories, taking into account all psychosocial data and health behaviours (eg diet and exercise) including potentially sensitive areas of sexuality (baseline) and self harm (mental health questionnaire). Full