Extended network analysis: from psychopathology to chronic illness

Abstract

Background Understanding complex associations between psychopathology and chronic illness is instrumental in facilitating both research and treatment progress. The current study is the first and only network-based study to provide such an encompassing view of unique associations between a multitude of mental and physical health-related domains. Methods The current analyses were based on the Singapore Mental Health Study, a cross-sectional study of adult Singapore residents. The study sample consisted of 6616 respondents, of which 49.8% were male and 50.2% female. A network structure was constructed to examine associations between psychopathology, alcohol use, gambling, major chronic conditions, and functioning. Results The network structure identified what we have labeled a Cartesian graph: a network visibly split into a psychopathological domain and a physical health domain. The borders between these domains were fuzzy and bridged by various cross-domain associations, with functioning items playing an important role in bridging chronic conditions to psychopathology. Conclusions Current results deliver a comprehensive overview of the complex relation between psychopathology, functioning, and chronic illness, highlighting potential pathways to comorbidity.

Network analysis of multivariate data in psychological science

“…Network approaches to multivariate data are based on generic statistical procedures and thus invite applications to many types of data. The approaches discussed in this paper, however, have been developed and typically used in the context of psychometric variables such as responses to questionnaire items, symptom ratings and cognitive test scores 20 , possibly extended with background variables such as age and gender 21 , genetic information 22 , physiological markers 23 , medical conditions 24 , experimental interventions 25 and anticipated downstream effects 26 . Accordingly, the nodes we discuss will ordinarily represent items and tests.…”

Network Analysis of Depressive Symptomatology in Underweight and Obese Adults

“…In addition, they may allow exploration of new lines of research to help better define depressive treatments with increased metabolic risk. 40 , 50 …”

Network analysis in clinical research

“…4 No obstante, durante la última década en el ámbito clínico se ha incluido otra variante del análisis de redes representada por las correlaciones estadísticas (dirigidas o no dirigidas) y basada en la teoría de grafos, 5,6 en la cual las asociaciones son de orden cero o relaciones parciales causales que conectan a los nodos (variables) y estructuran el modelo dinámico; la representación gráfica de este modelo facilita la interpretación de los resultados: mientras más gruesa sea la conexión entre las variables, mayor es la relación estadística. 6,7 P u b l i c a c i ó n a n t i c i p a d a .…”

“…5,6 Lo anterior favorece la inclusión de variables de diversa naturaleza y permite evaluar múltiples aspectos de salud y su condición comórbida, así como la interacción entre factores etiológicos y moduladores. Por ejemplo, Isvoranu et al, 7 mediante un estudio de red, evaluaron las relaciones entre variables psiquiátricas como ansiedad, depresión y psicosis, y la calidad de vida, el estado de salud física y mental y las enfermedades crónicas como diabetes, hipertensión arterial, asma, problemas de espalda, migrañas y tabaquismo en residentes adultos de Singapur.…”