Prevalence, risk factors and multi-group latent class analysis of lifetime anxiety disorders comorbid depressive symptoms

•Most residents with anxiety disorders had more than 4 kinds of depressive symptoms.•Gender differences of depressive subtypes in anxiety patients could be found.•Symptom-level should be taken into consideration in future studies on comorbidity.•Precision prevention should be targeted at different kinds of population. Previous studies about comorbidity have primarily focused on disorders based on diagnostic criteria instead of symptoms. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and risk factors of anxiety comorbid depression based on a population-based sample in Chifeng City Inner Mongolia and explored the gender differences of depressive subtypes in anxiety patients. This study was a cross-sectional study conducted among 6376 community residents. Logistics analysis and multiple-group latent class analysis was used in exploring the risk factors and subtypes of anxiety comorbid depressive symptoms. A total of 4528 respondents were interviewed in this study. The lifetime prevalence estimates for anxiety in the total sample was 5.70%. Among residents who had ever had anxiety, most of them reported having depressive symptoms while 15.79% of them met the criteria of MDD. Logistics analysis showed childhood adversities were associated with anxiety comorbid depressive symptoms. The results of multiple-group latent class analysis showed that the latent class probabilities were different between males and females. The prevalence rates of comorbidity were similar to the reports of previous regional surveys in China with statistically significant differences of comorbidity occurring between males and females. Precision prevention should therefore be targeted towards different kinds of populations.