Association between depressive symptoms and mortality risk in chronic kidney disease

Previous examinations of depression as a predictor of mortality in end-stage renal disease have yielded inconsistent findings. We sought to clarify the possible link with mortality by assessing depression at an earlier stage of renal impairment before the uremic disease state and depressive symptoms become highly confounded, and then following patients during the period of disease progression.

Prospective design using an assessment of depression before initiation of renal replacement therapy to predict mortality status an average of 81 months later in patients in the early stages of chronic kidney disease.

Mortality status.

After controlling for relevant mortality risk factors (i.e., age, gender, presence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, and potassium level), results of Cox regression analyses indicated that higher levels of nonsomatic depression symptoms were predictive of an increased mortality risk, χ²(1, N = 359) = 8.02, p = .005. Patients with nonsomatic depression scores 1 SD above the mean had an estimated mortality rate 21.4% higher than average scorers in this sample.

Clinical implications of these findings point to the importance of assessment and treatment of depressive symptoms in patients with chronic kidney disease.