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Life-course psychological distress and total mortality by middle age the 1970 Birth Cohort Study

Life-course psychological distress and total mortality by middle age the 1970 Birth Cohort Study
Life-course psychological distress and total mortality by middle age the 1970 Birth Cohort Study
Background: the onset of psychological distress most commonly occurs in adolescence and, in keeping with other exposures, is time-varying across the life course. Most studies of its association with mortality risk are, however, conducted in middle- and older-aged populations with a single baseline assessment. This may lead to an underestimation of the magnitude of distress–mortality relationship.

Methods: we used data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study. Psychological distress and covariates were collected at ages 5, 10, and 26. Vital status was ascertained between ages 26 and 44 years.

Results: eighteen years of mortality surveillance of 5,901 individuals (3,221 women) gave rise to 74 deaths. After adjustment for a series of confounding factors which included early life socioeconomic status, birth characteristics, and cognition, relative to the unaffected group, distress in childhood only was associated with around a 50% elevation in mortality risk (hazard ratio = 1.45; 95% confidence interval = 0.84, 2.51), whereas distress in adulthood only was related to a doubling of risk (1.95; 0.90, 4.21). In study members with persistent distress symptoms (childhood and adulthood), there was a tripling of the death rate (3.10; 1.42, 6.74) (P value for trend across these categories: 0.002).

Conclusion: the suggestion of a strong association between life-course distress and death warrants replication in a study with a greater number of events.
Anxiety, Cohort, Depression, Distress, Life-course, Mortality
1044-3983
740-743
Batty, David G
894f5dad-375f-40b6-8936-d9143b49f169
Hamer, M.
859af528-3efc-4647-a7ff-d3a3f9c004a3
Gale, Catharine
5bb2abb3-7b53-42d6-8aa7-817e193140c8
Batty, David G
894f5dad-375f-40b6-8936-d9143b49f169
Hamer, M.
859af528-3efc-4647-a7ff-d3a3f9c004a3
Gale, Catharine
5bb2abb3-7b53-42d6-8aa7-817e193140c8

Batty, David G, Hamer, M. and Gale, Catharine (2021) Life-course psychological distress and total mortality by middle age the 1970 Birth Cohort Study. Epidemiology, 740-743. (doi:10.1097/EDE.0000000000001374).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background: the onset of psychological distress most commonly occurs in adolescence and, in keeping with other exposures, is time-varying across the life course. Most studies of its association with mortality risk are, however, conducted in middle- and older-aged populations with a single baseline assessment. This may lead to an underestimation of the magnitude of distress–mortality relationship.

Methods: we used data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, a prospective cohort study. Psychological distress and covariates were collected at ages 5, 10, and 26. Vital status was ascertained between ages 26 and 44 years.

Results: eighteen years of mortality surveillance of 5,901 individuals (3,221 women) gave rise to 74 deaths. After adjustment for a series of confounding factors which included early life socioeconomic status, birth characteristics, and cognition, relative to the unaffected group, distress in childhood only was associated with around a 50% elevation in mortality risk (hazard ratio = 1.45; 95% confidence interval = 0.84, 2.51), whereas distress in adulthood only was related to a doubling of risk (1.95; 0.90, 4.21). In study members with persistent distress symptoms (childhood and adulthood), there was a tripling of the death rate (3.10; 1.42, 6.74) (P value for trend across these categories: 0.002).

Conclusion: the suggestion of a strong association between life-course distress and death warrants replication in a study with a greater number of events.

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20-0835.Batty BR.main text.edv edits + GDB.edv2 + GDB - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 10 May 2021
Published date: 1 September 2021
Additional Information: Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Anxiety, Cohort, Depression, Distress, Life-course, Mortality

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 451426
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/451426
ISSN: 1044-3983
PURE UUID: 371e12cb-12c0-4b5d-aa7f-0d89e09f51e2
ORCID for Catharine Gale: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3361-8638

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Date deposited: 27 Sep 2021 16:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 06:47

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Contributors

Author: David G Batty
Author: M. Hamer
Author: Catharine Gale ORCID iD

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