Thread by @morodavies

New paper alert! My final PhD paper exploring factors associated with anxiety disorder comorbidity has been published at the Journal of Affective Disorders. Thanks to @GLADStudy and @NIHRBioResource participants for making this possible. Here's a 🧵 of our main takeaways 1/9

Comorbidity between anxiety disorders has received less attention than that between depression and anxiety. Our findings replicated a #NESDA paper to show that anxiety-anxiety comorbidity has similarly severe/complex symptom presentation as anxiety-MDD but distinct features 2/9

Anxiety-anxiety was associated with lower rates of self-reported clinician-provided diagnoses, which may indicate less recognition or treatment seeking/receipt than anxiety-MDD 3/9

For people with anxiety-MDD, those with first-onset anxiety disorders had younger age of onset, lower rates of self-reported clinical diagnoses, and more severe current anxiety than first-onset MDD. Treating anxiety at first onset could help prevent later depressive episodes 4/9

We also compared genetic factors for the first time. Anxiety-anxiety had higher #PRS for neuroticism than single anxiety. Other comparisons were likely underpowered, but this provides preliminary proof-of-context for potential utility of genetics in comorbidity research 5/9

Overall, this study further demonstrates that anxiety disorders and comorbidity are clinically relevant phenotypes which warrant further investigation and attention in research, practice, and public health 6/9

Read the full article here: doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.…
Big thank you to my supervisor and senior author @thaliaeley and all co-authors Kiran @jessmndy @AbiterKuile @BrettNAdey @ProfArmour @ElhamAssary @Joni_Coleman @KimberleyGol @DrColetteHirsch @MatthewHotopf @topherhuebel 7/9

(co-authors cont.) @jonesir @gursharan_kalsi @georginakrebs @mcintosh2001 @genevieve_mv @aliciajpeel @kl_purves Sang Hyuck @MegSkelton1 @ProfDanielSmith @drdavidveale @drjameswalters @drkatieyoung @johanzvrskovec @psychgenomics 8/9

Want to help with future research to better understand these disorders and improve treatments? Are you from the UK? Have you experienced #anxiety or #depression? Get involved in
@GLADStudy! You can sign up at gladstudy.org.uk and help make a difference 9/9