Prevalence of depression and its determinants amongst patients with heart failure in a teaching hospital in Port Harcourt

Abstract

Background: As the life expectancy of patients with heart failure improves with recent advances in pharmacology and device therapies, depression is increasingly being recognized as contributing to morbidity and overall quality of life. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of depression and risk factors associated with depression in patients with heart failure in Rivers State University Teaching Hospital.
Methods: A total of 60 patients with heart failure attending the Cardiology clinic were consecutively recruited in this study. Interviewer administered structured questionnaires were used to obtain sociodemographic, behavioural and disease related variables. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 was used to diagnose and classify the severity of depression. Proportions were compared with chi-square test. Binary logistic regression was used to determine the relationship amongst variables. All tests were considered to be statistically significant at the p-value ≤ 0.05.
Results: The mean age of the study participants was 56.60±12.59 years with a male to female ratio of 1.4:1. The prevalence of depression was 65.0% (39 persons), of which, 20 (33.3%) persons had mild depression, 12(20.0%) and 7(11.7%) persons had moderate and severe depression respectively with a mean Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score of 11.52±5.11. Age, gender, educational level, and New York Heart Association class were significantly associated with depression. Level of education was the most important predictor of depression with adjusted odd ratio (aOR) of 6.27(95% CI:1.76-22.36; p=0.005)
Conclusion: Depression is common in heart failure with a significant negative impact on overall disease burden.