title: Depression as a risk factor for mortality after acute myocardial infarction.
abstract: The ENRICHD clinical trial, which compared an intervention for depression and social isolation to usual care, failed to decrease the rate of mortality and recurrent acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in post-AMI patients. One explanation for this is that depression was not associated with increased mortality in these patients. The purpose of this study was to determine if depression was associated with an increased risk of mortality in a subsample of the ENRICHD trial's depressed patients compared with a group of nondepressed patients recruited for an ancillary study. Three hundred fifty-eight depressed patients with an acute AMI from the ENRICHD clinical trial and 408 nondepressed patients who met the ENRICHD medical inclusion criteria were followed for up to 30 months. There were 47 deaths (6.1%) and 57 nonfatal AMIs (7.4%). After adjusting for other risk factors, depressed patients were at higher risk for all-cause mortality (hazard ratio 2.4, 95% confidence interval 1.2 to 4.7) but not for nonfatal recurrent infarction (hazard ratio 1.2, 95% confidence interval 0.7 to 2.0) compared with nondepressed patients. In conclusion, depression was an independent risk factor for death after AMI, but it did not have a significant effect on mortality until nearly 12 months after the acute event, nor did it predict nonfatal recurrent infarction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63108, USA. carneyr@bmc.wustl.edu
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Carney
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Blumenthal
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Catellier
authors.forename: Kenneth E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Freedland
authors.forename: Lisa F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Berkman
authors.forename: Lana L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Watkins
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Czajkowski
authors.forename: Junichiro
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hayano
authors.forename: Allan S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Jaffe
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality* / Q000523:psychology*; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D015996:Survival Rate