Health Psychology Research / HPR / Online First / DOI: 10.14440/hpr.0385
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Association between Visual Function Impairment and Depressive Symptoms in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross-sectional Study

Qiying Pan1† ,  Tianlin Zhang2† ,  Zongli Hu3 ,  Junhua Wang4 ,  Haojiang Ying5 ,  Rongsong Sun4 ,  Yaqing Li1 ,  Yi Yang4 ,  Yuandong Hu1*
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1 Academy of Preventive Medicine, Guizhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guiyang 550004, Guizhou, China
2 Department of Health Management, Guizhou Nursing Vocational College, Guiyang 550025, Guizhou, China
3 Department of Ophthalmology, Daping Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China
4 Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Monitoring and Disease Control, School of Public Health, Guizhou Medical University, Ministry of Education, Guiyang 561113, Guizhou, China
5 Department of Psychology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215031, Jiangsu, China
HPR, e81240063 https://doi.org/10.14440/hpr.0385
Submitted: 18 November 2025 | Revised: 10 January 2026 | Accepted: 13 January 2026 | Published: 10 February 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Background

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is frequently accompanied by the occurrence of depression and visual impairment. At present, the association between visual function and depression in T2DM remains unclear.

Objective

This study aims to examine the association between visual function impairment and depressive symptoms with T2DM.

Methods

A total of 542 participants with T2DM were recruited from four community hospitals. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression scale was used to measure depressive symptoms. Concurrently, visual function was assessed using the Chinese revised version of the Visual Function Index (VF-14) scale for near vision, visual adaptation, subjective vision, and stereoscopic vision. The relationship between visual function and depressive symptoms was evaluated using logistic regression, Spearman’s correlation analysis, restricted cubic spline, and subgroup analysis.

Results

The findings revealed that 61 (11.25%) participants were identified as having depressive symptoms. Logistic regression analysis revealed significant associations between depression symptoms and near vision (odds ratio [OR] = 1.156; 95% confidence interval [CI; 1.052, 1.271]; p=0.003), visual adaptation (OR = 1.341; 95% CI [1.169, 1.539]; p<0.001), subjective vision (OR = 1.332; 95% CI [1.133, 1.567]; p=0.001), stereoscopic vision (OR = 1.169; 95% CI [1.019, 1.340]; p=0.026), and VF-14 score (OR = 1.073; 95% CI [1.034, 1.113]; p<0.001). The restricted cubic spline showed that the risk of developing depressive symptoms increased progressively as the VF-14 score increased (p for non-linearity < 0.05).

Conclusion

Impaired visual function in T2DM is likely to be associated with an increased prevalence of depressive symptoms, including near vision, visual adaptation, subjective vision, and stereoscopic vision, suggesting its crucial role in the development of depression in T2DM.

Keywords
Visual function
Depressive symptoms
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32200850), the Guizhou Provincial Science and Technology Support Program project (Qiankehe Support [2020] 4Y135), and the Community Health Management Science Popularization Project of Guizhou Provincial Association for Science and Technology (grant number: 202501).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Health Psychology Research, Electronic ISSN: 2420-8124 Published by Health Psychology Research
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