Veronese N, et al. – The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the aspirin use is associated with a decreased incidence of depressive symptoms in a large North American cohort. The present data indicated that prescription of aspirin offered no significant protection against incident depressive symptoms. Whether aspirin is useful in a subgroup of depression with high levels of inflammation remains to be examined in future studies.

Methods

• For the purpose of this study, information from the Osteoarthritis Initiative dataset, a multicenter, longitudinal study on community-dwelling adults was investigated.
• Aspirin use was defined through self-report in the previous thirty days and affirmed by a trained interviewer.
• Incident depressive symptoms were characterized as a score of ≥16 in the 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale.

Results

• An aggregate of one hundred thirty seven members (mean age 65 y, 55.5% female) were using aspirin at baseline.
• Compared with four thousand three members not taking aspirin, no differences in Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression at baseline were evident (P = .65).
• The incidence of depressive symptoms was similar in those taking aspirin at baseline (43; 95% CI, 3-60) and in aspirin nonusers (38; 95% CI, 36-41) per 1000 y; log-rank test = 0.63) after a median follow-up time of 8 years.
• Aspirin use was not significantly related to the development of depressive symptoms (hazard ratio = 1.12; 95% CI, 0.78-1.62; P = .54) based on Cox's regression analysis adjusted for 11 potential confounders.
• According to the findings obtained, adjustment for propensity scores or the use of propensity score matching did not alter the outcomes.