In the present study, we analyzed reported lifetime depression (DEP) that was derived from the background questionnaire and was validated in a subpopulation using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) [20]. Validation data were published recently [17]. Depressive symptoms were measured using the depression items plus the additional items (BSI-DEP), and anxiety using the anxiety items (BSI-ANX) of the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) [21]. A continuous weighted score (sum of item scores divided by the number of items completed) was calculated for each BSI variable mentioned above and used in the analysis. For Bayesian analysis the BSI depression and anxiety scores were divided into categorical variables (low, 0–<1; moderate, 1–<2; severe, 2–4).
