Oral Association Between Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D[25(OH)D] Levels and Depressive Symptoms in Patients Hospitalized with a Diagnosis of Depression

Objectives : This study aimed to examine the association of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels with the severity and dimensions of depressive symptoms in hospitalized patients with a current depressive episode. Methods : We investigated 33 patients(mean age 55.3±14.4, 81.8% women) who were hospitalized with diagnosis of depression. All participants had blood test to evaluate serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D[25(OH)D] levels on admission and were categorized to 4 groups according to their vitamin D levels. Demographic data and clinical characteristics were obtained from the structured interview by a psychiatric clinician. HAMD, HAMA, CGI and GAF were used to evaluate depressive symptoms. Results : Normal vitamin D (>30 ng/mL), insufficiency 1(20-30 ng/mL), insufficiency 2(10-20 ng/mL), deficiency(<10 ng/ mL) were present in 15.2%, 27.3%, 42.4% and 15.2% of patients., respectively. Most of the patients(84.8%) showed the serum vitamin D levels below the normal range. There was no significant difference in demographic data and clinical characteristics between the groups. Also, there were no association between low vitamin D levels and depressive symptoms. Conclusions : Low vitamin D levels are frequent in hospitalized patients with depression. However, in the present study, low vitamin D levels were not significantly related to the severity or clinical characteristics of depression