Anxiety, depression, and associated factors among inpatients waiting for heart transplantation

Although heart transplants have become more common, little is known about the psychological status of patients waiting for a heart transplant.

Thirty-eight inpatients waiting for heart transplantation from October 2010 to December 2011 in a large general hospital in Shanghai were assessed by a psychiatrist using the Hamilton Depression Scale and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale at admission and weekly thereafter until the operation took place.

The patients included 30 males and 8 females with a mean (sd) age of 44.7 (12.9) years who had been seriously limited due to their heart disease (i.e., Stage III heart disease) for a mean of 18.5 (24.0) months. Among them, 7.9% (3/38) were moderately or severely depressed and 47.4 % (18/38) had moderate or severe anxiety symptoms; only one (2.6%) had concurrent moderate to severe anxiety and depression. There was a slight but statistically significant increase in both anxiety and depressive symptoms during the first week of hospitalization. In the stepwise backward logistic regression, the reported level of anxiety was significantly associated with the duration of Stage III heart disease (less anxiety in those with longer Stage III disease), prior treatment in an intensive care unit (associated with less anxiety), age (anxiety increases with age), and prior emergency cardiac treatment (associated with greater anxiety). Multivariate linear regression analysis also found that longer duration of Stage III disease and higher educational status were associated with reporting less depressive symptoms, but a longer total duration of heart disease was associated with reports of more depressive symptoms.

Unlike reports from other countries, we found that anxiety symptoms are more prevalent and more severe than depressive symptoms among inpatients waiting for heart transplantation in Shanghai. There is an inverse relationship between duration of disabling illness and the preoperative self-reports of anxiety and depressive symptoms: those who had had Stage III disease for over a year reported less severe anxiety and depressive symptoms than those who had had Stage III disease for less than a year.