Subjective cognitive decline, anxiety symptoms, and the risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia

Table 3 Results from the two sensitivity analyses to evaluate the robustness of the main findings

Analyses	No. of MCI and dementia / Total (%)	Hazard ratio (95% CI)^a	p value
Sensitivity analysis 1: severity of anxiety (n = 14,066)
Anxiety^b
No symptoms	2032/12796 (15.9)	1.0 (Ref)	Ref
Mild symptoms	182/908 (20.0)	1.3 (1.1–1.5)	0.004
Moderate symptoms	55/311 (17.7)	1.4 (1.0–1.9)	0.032
Severe symptoms	16/51 (31.4)	2.3 (1.3–4.1)	0.004
SCD
No	1445/10257 (14.1)	1.0 (Ref)	Ref
Yes	840/3809 (22.1)	1.8 (1.7–2.0)	< 0.001
Sensitivity analysis 2: consistency of symptoms in the first 2 years of the study (n = 6926)
Anxiety^c
No anxiety	707/5982 (11.8)	1.0 (Ref)	Ref
Inconsistent anxiety	130/762 (17.1)	1.6 (1.3–1.9)	< 0.001
Consistent anxiety	34/182 (18.7)	1.7 (1.1–2.6)	0.013
SCD^c
No SCD	456/4630 (9.9)	1.0 (Ref)	Ref
Inconsistent SCD	237/1459 (16.2)	1.6 (1.3–1.9)	< 0.001
Consistent SCD	178/837 (21.3)	2.5 (2.0–3.0)	< 0.001

SCD subjective cognitive decline, CI confidence interval, Ref reference group
^aModel adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, years of education, APOE e4 status, current smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, Mini-Mental State Examination score, total score on Geriatric Depression Scale, history of depression, use of antidepressants, and use of anxiolytics
^bAnxiety symptoms were included in the analysis as an ordinal variable, based on the severity of symptoms: 0 = not present, 1 = mild (noticeable, but not a significant change), 2 = moderate (significant, but not a dramatic change), and 3 = severe (very marked or prominent; a dramatic change)
^cThis analysis was conducted in the subset of participants with normal cognition at year 1 and year 2—those who reported anxiety or SCD at both years were deemed as having “consistent” symptoms, while those who reported anxiety or SCD at either year only were deemed as having “inconsistent” symptoms

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