Abstract
Depressive disorder represents the leading cause of disability worldwide. An increasing body of evidence suggests that patients presenting psychological distress and depression show alterations in immunological markers. The aim of our study was to observe the correlation of fibrinogen as a potential biological marker for psychological distress and depression. Data analyzed in this paper refers to patients (N=100) included in a prospective study conducted between 01 February-30 June 2016, males and females, age>18 years, recruited from the patients whom presented for diverse para-clinical evaluations in the outpatient clinic National Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics “Ana Aslan” (NIGG “Ana Aslan”), Bucharest, Romania. Socio-demographic information collected included: gender, age, marital status, environmental origin, level of education, socioeconomic status. For all the participants of the study fibrinogen was measured using a turbidimetry method. Psychological distress and depressive symptoms were evaluated using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). From the total number of patients 64% were female, with a mean age of 67 years, from the urban area (92%), retired (80%).We found a mean value of fibrinogen of 301.16 mg/dL (SD ± 63.20). At HADS-global the patients presented a mean value of 15.9 (SD ± 7.31), while at the HADS-D the mean value was 6.41 (SD ± 3.60). Low statistically significant positive correlations between fibrinogen and HADS-global ( r (98)= .30, p= 0.0023) and s HADS-D (r (98)=.36, p=0.0003) were found. Our study s results were consistent with the data literature reported from previous studies showing a significant positive correlation between psychological distress, depression and fibrinogen. Also, we found higher levels of plasma fibrinogen when we compared patients presenting psychological distress with those without psychological distress, even though the effect size was rather small.
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