Health
Depression Affects Heart Patient Health
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Depression Affects Heart Patient Health
July 11, 2003
Treating the mind may be just as important as treating the heart for people with heart disease. A new study shows symptoms of depression make people with heart disease feel worse regardless of how well their ticker is actually working.
Researchers say the results show that depression plays an important role in how healthy people with heart disease feel. They also say treatment of heart disease should also include assessment and treatment of symptoms of depression.
People with depression are known to fare worse with heart disease than people without depression, but researchers say it's not clear how psychological factors are related to actual physical indicators of heart function or how a person perceives his or her own health.
The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the relationship between symptoms of depression and measures of heart and overall health in a group of 1,024 adults with heart disease.
One-fifth (20%) of the heart disease patients had symptoms of depression, and researchers found these symptoms were strongly linked to several health indicators. For example, nearly twice as many depressed vs. non-depressed patients reported:
At least mild heart disease symptom burden (60% vs. 33%), Mild physical limitation (73% vs. 40%),
Mildly diminished quality of life (67% vs. 31%), and
Fair or poor overall health (66% vs. 30%)
However, two traditional measures of heart disease severity, ejection fraction (an indicator of how strong the heart is) and ischemia (an indicator of low blood flow to the heart), were not significantly associated with these health factors or the participants' quality of life. The researchers also found that lowered exercise capacity was associated with symptoms of depression.
Researchers say the findings show that depressive symptoms are at least as important as heart function in people with heart disease.
"Indeed, 'low-tech' measures of health, including depressive symptoms and exercise capacity, were more strongly associated with heath status outcomes than 'high-tech' measures of cardiac disease severity," write researcher Bernice Ruo, MD, of Veterans Medical Affairs Medical Center in San Francisco, and colleagues.
Compared with others, the study showed that heart patients with symptoms of depression were also more likely to have:
A history of heart attack or diabetes
A higher body mass index
A lower capacity for exercise
A lower income
Greater stress and less social support
In addition, those with depressive symptoms also tended to be younger than those without and were less likely to be married or male.