To determine if patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with depressive symptoms differ in regard to organ involvement and serological activity from other patients with SLE.
Disease manifestations were compared between 71 patients with SLE with a history of depressive symptoms and 278 patients without a history of depressive symptoms by univariate analysis and multiple logistic regression.
Both univariate and logistic regression analysis revealed an association of depressive symptoms with neuropsychiatric lupus and secondary Sjögren's syndrome (SS). Patients with neuropsychiatric lupus had an adjusted odds ratio of 3.43 (95% CI 2.55, 4.63; p = 0.00005), and patients with secondary SS had an adjusted odds ratio of 2.97 (95% CI 2.08, 4.25; p = 0.0006) for depressive symptoms. No other organ involvement or serological abnormality was associated with depressed mood.
These discrete associations of depressive symptoms with neuropsychiatric lupus and secondary SS suggest that depression does not occur purely as a response to social stresses, and may be a manifestation of autoimmune disease in some patients.