Factors associated with depression among Chinese residents in the later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

We have read with great interest the study by Li et al.,¹ in which the authors reported that depressive symptoms were still prevalent in community residents of China from July 2021 to January 2022. Li et al.¹ found that female sex, being overweight and alcohol consumption were risk factors for depressive symptoms; on the contrary, people with a marriage, high income, ordinary work or living in urban areas had a lower probability of the occurrence of depressive symptoms. Their findings highlight the COVID-19 epidemic, which threatens the mental health of the public, although it occurred during the later pandemic periods. However, we are concerned that several covariates associated with the occurrence of depressive symptoms have not been evaluated in this community survey. Other potential factors for depression during the period of the COVID-19 epidemic have been reported to include younger age, lower education, tobacco smoking use, comorbidities (including physical and mental diseases), confirmed suspected infected, infected colleagues or household members, close contact with the infector, high epidemic location or high risk of exposure, enforcement of restrictions on public community activities, highly concerning epidemic, quarantine or isolation, fewer social support, reduced exercise, less preventive behaviour, etc.,^2–5 which could substantially influence the results. Due to dynamic changes in public health and social measures, community herd immunity, individual clinical care and the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern transmissibility and severity of infections, we understand that it could be difficult to capture the contributions of extensive factors to depressive disorders in the present study. We appreciate the valuable insight into mental health that Li et al. have made; meanwhile, we would like to draw readers’ attention to the consequential effect of unidentified factors on the research results when interpreting the conclusions of the article.

Author contributions

S.-C. Chen (Conceptualization [equal], Methodology [equal], Project administration [equal], Supervision [equal], Validation [equal], Writing—original draft [equal], Writing—review & editing [equal]), P.-H. Wang (Conceptualization [equal], Methodology [equal], Validation [equal], Writing—original draft [equal], Writing—review & editing [equal]), C.-C. Chen (Conceptualization [equal], Methodology [equal], Project administration [equal], Supervision [equal], Validation [equal], Writing—original draft [equal], Writing—review & editing [equal]), and M.-H. Hsieh (Conceptualization [equal], Methodology [equal], Project administration [equal], Supervision [lead], Validation [lead], Writing—original draft [equal], Writing—review & editing [lead])

Conflict of interest

None declared.

References

Author notes