Depressive symptoms and their associated factors in heart failure patients

Deng-Xin He,Ming-Hao Pan

doi:10.2478/fon-2021-0039

Deng-Xin He, Ming-Hao Pan

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.2478/fon-2021-0039

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Abstract

Abstract Objectives Depressive symptoms are common in heart failure (HF) patients and they may exacerbate the progression of HF. Thus, identifying associations with depressive symptoms is essential to develop effective interventions to alleviate patients’ depressive symptoms. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the factors related to HF patients’ depressive symptoms. Methods Potential hospitalized patients were recruited from a university-affiliated hospital by convenience sampling. This study included 321 HF patients who had completed information about depressive symptoms, functional capacity, social support, dispositional optimism, self-care confidence, and health literacy. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample. Independent group t-tests and one-way analysis of variance were used to assess the difference in depressive symptoms score in demographic and clinical characteristics, while Pearson's correlation was used to assess the associations among continuous variables. Results The scores for functional capacity, social support, dispositional optimism, self-care confidence, and health literacy were negatively associated with the score for depressive symptoms. The interaction effect between the functional capacity and the dispositional optimism on depressive symptoms was significant. Conclusions Interventions targeted improving the above-mentioned factors may be beneficial to reduce depressive symptoms in HF patients.

Highlights

Depressive symptoms are common in patients with heart failure (HF).[1]
Functional capacity, social support, dispositional optimism, self-care confidence, and health literacy were negatively connected to depressive symptoms; these findings add to the existing literature
Our study indicated that HF patients with lower dispositional optimism may have more depressive symptoms when their functional capacity decreased

Summary

Introduction

Depressive symptoms are common in patients with heart failure (HF).[1] It has been found that the prevalence rates of depressive symptoms range from 24% to 42% in patients with HF,[2] and 58% in hospitalized older patients with HF.[3] Depressive symptoms are demonstrated to be associated with poor prognosis in patients with HF.[4,5] It was found that both depressive symptoms in baseline and worsening depressive symptoms in 1-year followup increased the risk of HF patients’ death or cardiovascular hospitalization.[6,7] depressive symptoms could significantly predict increased all-cause mortality during 1-year follow-up.[8] the hazard was found to differ over time with depressive symptoms posing a little risk for HF patients’ mortality in the first year, but the greater risk in the second and third years

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Discussion

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