Frequency of depression symptoms in patients hospitalized for acute coronary syndrome and search for predisposing associated factors

Abstract

Introduction: depression is related to cardiovascular disease. It is a complication after an acute coronary event and affects its prognosis.
Objectives: 1) To assess the presence of depression symptoms in patients admitted for an acute coronary syndrome with and without persistent ST elevation of moderate or high risk treated with coronary catheterization. 2) To identify associations between the presence of these symptoms and sociodemographic variables.
Method: observational, descriptive-analytic, cross-sectional study in patients admitted to a mutual fund in Montevideo because an acute coronary syndrome. The presence of depression was evaluated with Beck-II´s scale (BDI-II).
Results: 111 patients were included, aged 63.0 ± 11.9 and 56.8% men. The BDI-II score was 7.3 ± 3.3. According to this, 23 patients (20.7%) presented medium depression symptoms but none greater degrees. Patients with medium depression symptoms were older than those who did not have (67.5 ± 9.4 vs. 62.0 ± 12.3 years, p = 0.048), have lower proportion of complete secondary education (39.1% vs. 64.8%, p = 0.026) and more frequently reside outside Montevideo (34.8% vs. 11.4%, p = 0.012) (OR = 1.5 CI95% 1.0-2.3), the only variable that remained significant in the multivariate analysis (p=0.011). There were no significant differences in terms of gender and sedentary lifestyle. 36.9% of the patients knew the meaning and prognostic value of their disease and 27.0% the measures for rehabilitation, without significant differences between subgroups: with or without medium depression symptoms.
Conclusions: in this series the prevalence of medium depression symptoms was 20.7%, lower than expected. Residence outside Montevideo was independently associated with medium depression symptoms. Patients’ knowledge of their disease and of rehabilitation measures was low.