ArticleCureus2026
Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Severe Vision Difficulty Among United States Adults.
Article in Cureus, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDepression and vision impairment are major public health concerns, yet the association between depressive symptom severity and severe vision difficulty remains unclear.
methodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013-2018. A total of 9,227 adults were included. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Severe vision difficulty was defined as self-reported serious difficulty seeing or being blind. Survey-weighted logistic regression, restricted cubic spline modeling, and subgroup analyses were performed to evaluate the associations.
resultsAmong 9,227 participants, 632 (6.85%) reported severe vision difficulty. In the fully adjusted model, compared with participants with no depressive symptoms, the odds ratios for severe vision difficulty were 1.74 (95% CI: 1.28-2.37) for mild depressive symptoms, 2.28 (95% CI: 1.56-3.34) for moderate depressive symptoms, 4.77 (95% CI: 2.16-10.51) for moderately severe depressive symptoms, and 5.20 (95% CI: 2.87-9.44) for severe depressive symptoms (P for trend < 0.001). When analyzed continuously, each five-point increase in PHQ-9 score was associated with higher odds of severe vision difficulty (OR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.43-1.79, P < 0.001). Restricted cubic spline modeling showed a significant overall association (P for overall association < 0.001), whereas the test for nonlinearity was not significant (P for nonlinearity = 0.560). Exploratory subgroup analyses showed no significant interaction across major demographic and clinical strata (all P for interaction > 0.05).
conclusionsDepressive symptom severity was independently and linearly associated with severe vision difficulty among adults in the United States. These findings suggest that greater depressive symptom burden may be linked to poorer visual health in the general population.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.