Depression, anxiety symptoms saddle adolescents with JIA

Adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) remain vulnerable to symptoms of depression and anxiety, particularly panic, according to a study, noting the ongoing need for mental health screening protocols and services in this population.

In this study, the authors used the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) to assess the symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescents with JIA aged 12 to 18 years at a Canadian tertiary care hospital.

The RCADS includes six subscales, namely separation anxiety, social phobia, generalized anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive, and major depressive disorder. Scores beyond the clinical threshold on the RCADS subscales suggest that an individual’s responses reflect symptoms akin to those diagnosed with the corresponding mental health disorder.

Subsequently, the authors compared demographic and disease-related variables between participants who scored above and below the clinical threshold on each of the subscales using the Fisher exact and Mann-Whitney U tests.

Eighty adolescents were included, of whom 32 (40 percent) scored above the clinical threshold on at least one subscale. Such scores were most common for major depressive disorder (23.8 percent) and panic disorder (22.5 percent) subscales. These were followed by social phobia (16.3 percent) and separation anxiety (13.8 percent).

Female participants had a higher likelihood of scoring above the clinical threshold on the panic disorder subscale. Participants with higher self-reported disease activity were also more likely to have scores above the clinical threshold for all anxiety subscales, except separation anxiety.

“The relationships between concomitant mental health disorders, disease activity, and patient-reported outcomes require further research,” the authors said.