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Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Upper-extremity Approach for Secondary Access in Transfemoral Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation
Published on: August 8, 2025
Effect of Short-Term Psychological Intervention on Depression Dynamics in Aortic Stenosis Patients Undergoing
Objective:
Because depression has been identified as a relevant comorbidity in cardiovascular patients, we aimed to assess the impact of a brief expectation-focused psychological intervention on depression dynamics in aortic stenosis patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI).
Methods:
From 82 TAVI patients showing a Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS-D) score ≥8 points for depression, 74 patients underwent 1:1 randomization, with 38 assigned to the control (CON; treatment as usual) and 36 to the intervention (INT; psychological short-term intervention) group. The psychological intervention consisted of 2 individual sessions before and 2 booster sessions after TAVI. Per protocol, the HADS-D score for depression at 6 months was defined as the primary outcome and compared with baseline between the CON and the INT group by using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).
Results:
Regarding the primary outcome measure, there was a mean HADS-D depression score of 10.76 (SD: 2.77) at baseline and 9.44 (SD: 4.56) at 6 months after TAVI in the CON group and of 9.86 (SD: 2.0) at baseline and 7.5 (SD: 3.15) at 6 months after TAVI in the INT group. ANCOVA did not show a significant effect of the psychological short-term interventions versus control (estimate=-1.67; 95% CI=-3.64 to -0.29) on depression dynamics 6 months after TAVI, adjusted for baseline HADS-D.
Conclusions:
An effect of a psychological intervention on depression dynamics could not be shown. However, there was an improvement in depression at 6 months after TAVI, which is probably due to a decline in heart failure symptoms.