Inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria and study summary
Depression and anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders worldwide, affecting at least 30% of the population over their lifespan and are highly correlated, both phenotypically and genetically. There is an acute need to understand the causes of depression and anxiety and to develop new treatments. These disorders can be debilitating, affecting all aspects of an individual’s life. However, efforts to understand the aetiology of these disorders requires very large sample sizes, which are not currently available. Moreover, the UK lacks a large platform that can enable experimental medicine studies of depression and anxiety nationally. Therefore, the development of a research resource comprised of individuals who have suffered a lifetime occurrence of anxiety or depression will give researchers access to a large population based sample. This will facilitate analysis to inform our understanding of both anxiety and depressive disorders. The aim of this project is to lead on such studies by first recruiting a large number of participants who will provide responses to a comprehensive set of questions. The participants will be recruited into an existing biobank, the NIHR BioResource for Translational Research in Common and Rare Diseases, a recontactable biobank. Our recruitment will help towards forming the largest recontactable biobank of participants diagnosed with or suffering from two very common disorders, depression and anxiety, who will be primarily recruited through an online platform. Our project will explore genetic and environmental factors associated with risk for depression and anxiety disorders in the UK, to understand these common disorders and help develop better treatments.