The requirement for large sample sizes for psychiatric genetic analyses necessitates novel approaches to derive cases. Anxiety and depression show substantial genetic overlap and share pharmacological treatments. Data on prescribed medication could be effective for inferring case status when other indicators of mental health are unavailable. We investigated self-reported current medication use in UK Biobank participants of European ancestry. Medication Status cases reported using antidepressant or anxiolytic medication (n = 22,218), controls did not report psychotropic medication use (n = 168,959). A subset, “Medication Only,” additionally did not meet criteria for any other mental health indicator (case n = 2,643, control n = 107,029). We assessed genetic overlap between these phenotypes and two published genetic association studies of anxiety and depression, and an internalizing disorder trait derived from symptom-based questionnaires in UK Biobank. Genetic correlations between Medication Status and the three anxiety and depression phenotypes were significant (r_g = 0.60–0.73). In the Medication Only subset, the genetic correlation with depression was significant (r_g = 0.51). The three polygenic scores explained 0.33% – 0.80% of the variance in Medication Status and 0.07% – 0.19% of the variance in Medication Only. This study provides evidence that self-reported current medication use offers an alternate or supplementary anxiety or depression phenotype in genetic studies where diagnostic information is sparse or unavailable.

中文翻译：

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自我报告的药物使用作为英国生物银行焦虑和抑郁的替代表型方法

精神病学遗传分析对大样本量的要求需要新的方法来推导病例。焦虑和抑郁表现出大量的遗传重叠并共享药物治疗。当其他心理健康指标不可用时，处方药数据可能有助于推断病例状态。我们调查了欧洲血统的英国生物银行参与者自我报告的当前药物使用情况。报告使用抗抑郁药或抗焦虑药物的药物状态病例（n  = 22,218），对照组未报告使用精神药物（n  = 168,959）。一个子集“仅药物治疗”也不符合任何其他心理健康指标的标准（病例n  = 2,643，对照n = 107,029)。我们评估了这些表型与两项已发表的焦虑和抑郁遗传关联研究之间的遗传重叠，以及来自英国生物银行基于症状的问卷的内化障碍特征。药物状态与三种焦虑和抑郁表型之间的遗传相关性显着（r _g  = 0.60-0.73）。在仅药物治疗子集中，与抑郁症的遗传相关性显着（r _g = 0.51)。三个多基因评分解释了药物状态变化的 0.33% – 0.80% 和仅药物治疗变化的 0.07% – 0.19%。这项研究提供的证据表明，自我报告的当前药物使用在诊断信息稀少或不可用的基因研究中提供了替代或补充的焦虑或抑郁表型。