Depression not a risk factor for mortality in CVD, study says

Recent research indicates that depression does not contribute to increased mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), and that the observed association is largely attributable to coexisting risk factors and comorbidities.

Researchers conducted a secondary analysis of data from 2,064 adults with a history of CVD who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2018.

Depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, with a score of ≥10 indicating the presence of depression. Primary outcomes were all-cause, cardiovascular, and noncardiovascular mortality, with data obtained from the National Death Index.

Depression was identified in 368 participants. Compared with no-depression controls, participants with depression were younger (mean age, 61.7 vs 66.6 years) and were more likely to be female (59.5 percent vs 40.2 percent) and have obesity (56.3 percent vs 45.3 percent).

A total of 403 deaths overall were recorded over a median follow-up of 4.67 years. In a multivariable Cox model, depression was associated with an increased hazard of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.33, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.02–1.75) and noncardiovascular mortality (HR, 1.46, 95 percent CI, 1.04–2.05).

However, the associations disappeared following propensity score matching and inverse probability weighting.

Additional studies with prospective cohorts are needed to confirm the findings.