Bridging the gap: A symptom network analysis of depression, anxiety, and fatigue in multiple sclerosis

'Worthlessness' and 'anhedonia' emerged with the highest EI at baseline and follow-up, respectively. In terms of bridging symptoms, 'worthlessness', 'afraid something awful would happen', and 'fatigue severity' emerged as potential bridging symptoms that clustered depressive, anxiety, and fatigue symptoms in pwMS. This changed to 'restlessness', 'uncontrollable worry', and 'suicidal ideation' at follow-up. Further analyses indicated that the two networks remained similar with respect to global strength (p = .97) CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that depressive, anxiety, and fatigue symptoms are highly interconnected in MS. Identifying bridging symptoms may allow for a renewed therapeutic focus and avenue for symptomatic improvement across board areas of psychopathology in MS.