An Adaptive Graphical Lasso Approach to Modeling Symptom Networks of Common Mental Disorders in Eritrean Refugee Population

TL;DR

This study introduces an adaptive graphical Lasso method to reliably model symptom networks of mental disorders in Eritrean refugees, revealing key symptoms and clusters that could inform targeted interventions.

Contribution

It develops a novel adaptive penalization extension to graphical Lasso for stable network estimation in small sample, high-dimensional settings.

Findings

Identified six symptom clusters with somatic-anxiety as most interconnected

Nausea and reliving are central symptoms linking multiple disorders

Key symptoms include feeling fearful, sleep problems, and loss of interest

Abstract

Despite the significant public health burden of common mental disorders (CMDs) among refugee populations, their underlying symptom structures remain underexplored. This study uses Gaussian graphical modeling to examine the symptom network of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and somatic distress among Eritrean refugees in the Greater Washington, DC area. Given the small sample size (n) and high-dimensional symptom space (p), we propose a novel extension of the standard graphical LASSO by incorporating adaptive penalization, which improves sparsity selection and network estimation stability under n < p conditions. To evaluate the reliability of the network, we apply bootstrap resampling and use centrality measures to identify the most influential symptoms. Our analysis identifies six distinct symptom clusters, with somatic-anxiety symptoms forming the most interconnected group. Notably, symptoms such as nausea and reliving past experiences emerge as central symptoms linking PTSD, anxiety, depression, and somatic distress. Additionally, we identify symptoms like feeling fearful, sleep problems, and loss of interest in activities as key symptoms, either being closely positioned to many others or acting as important bridges that help maintain the overall network connectivity, thereby highlighting their potential importance as possible intervention targets.