We, the Editors of BJPsych Open, have retracted the following article:

Epidemiological features of depression and anxiety among homeless adults with healthcare access problems in London, UK: descriptive cross-sectional analysis.

Sujit D. Rathod, P. J. Annand, Paniz Hosseini, Andrew Guise and Lucy Platt.

In May 2024, the authors of this paper voluntarily submitted a corrigendum to the publisher which acknowledged a coding error in the primary outcome measure of anxiety and depression using the PHQ4 scale. A second error was identified which was a mislabeling of the sexuality and ethnicity variables under the wrong intervention arms.

The authors noted that the overall median PHQ4 was not 8 but 7. The proportion with a ‘red flag’ PHQ4 score was not 40.2% but 38.2%. The authors noted that in the further analysis of demographic, social exclusion, and health-related characteristics and their association with the PHQ4 scores, a substantial number of revisions were required in the results and discussion sections and within Tables 1 and 2.

Due to the substantial centrality of the PHQ4 score, an independent peer review was commissioned by the Editor in Chief to assess the impact of the coding error on the article. The review revealed that the coding errors appeared to involve at least three variables.

In view of the extent and significance of the errors, the Editors concluded that a corrigendum would not be sufficient to resolve these issues. They agreed that retraction of the original article with subsequent resubmission of a corrected paper would be the best course of action.

The journal did not request an institutional investigation.

All authors have confirmed agreement to the retraction.