How Depression Might Relate to Dry Eye Disease

In a secondary analysis of the DREAM study, Zhou et al¹ examined associations between depression and dry eye severity, focusing on both clinical (symptoms and signs) and subclinical parameters (inflammatory markers in tears and on the ocular surface). The main conclusion of their work is that, similar to what previous studies found, individuals with depression (defined as scoring ≤42 on the Mental Component Summary [MCS] of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey) had more severe dry eye disease (DED) symptoms, but mostly similar signs, compared with those without depression. Similar findings have been noted across various populations, including those in South Florida,² Korea,³ and China.⁴