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Review of major measuring instruments in comorbid depression and coronary heart disease

W Victor R Vieweg1, Mehrul Hasnain, Edward J Lesnefsky

  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia, USA. Vvieweg@Verizon.Net

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry
|March 29, 2011
PubMed

Insights

Treating depression in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) may not improve cardiac outcomes. Researchers suggest using objective CHD measures to evaluate depression treatments and understand the link between these conditions.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Psychiatry
  • Comorbidity Research

Background:

  • Depression and coronary heart disease (CHD) frequently coexist, each potentially exacerbating the other.
  • Current treatments for depression in patients with CHD have not consistently shown improvements in cardiac outcomes.
  • Existing assessment tools for depression in CHD patients have limitations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate the limitations of current depression assessment instruments in comorbid CHD patients.
  • To propose a novel approach for assessing the efficacy of psychiatric interventions in this population.
  • To better elucidate the relationship between depression and cardiac conditions.

Main Methods:

  • Review of instruments recommended by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute for depression assessment in CHD.
  • Comparative analysis of depression assessment tools versus established CHD assessment parameters.
  • Proposal for utilizing objective CHD parameters to gauge psychiatric intervention effectiveness.

Main Results:

  • Identified significant limitations in current subjective scales for assessing depression in comorbid CHD.
  • Highlighted the disparity between the robustness of CHD assessment tools and depression assessment tools.
  • Proposed a framework for objective evaluation of depression treatment efficacy in CHD.

Conclusions:

  • Current methods for assessing depression in comorbid CHD patients are insufficient.
  • Objective CHD parameters offer a more reliable method for evaluating psychiatric interventions.
  • Further research is needed to refine the assessment of depression's impact on cardiac health and vice versa.

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