Detecting depression in hospitalized cardiac patients

Depression has been shown to increase an individual's risk for heart disease. Despite this finding, physicians are not identifying depression in their hospitalized cardiac patients. This study looked at hospitalized cardiac patients and determined whether their physicians were identifying depression in those that scored > 5 on the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) depression inventory. Methods included assessing patient depression during their stay at a hospital intensive care unit using the PHQ-9. Those patients scoring > 5 were determined as depressed. Chart audits were performed after patients were discharged from the hospital to discover whether physicians were identifying these patients as depressed. The results showed that out of 111 surveys, 83 had a score of > 5. This indicated that 74.7% of hospitalized cardiac patients had some type of depression while in the hospital ranging from mild, moderate, or severe. Of those 83 patients, only 9 or 10% were identified as depressed by their physician during their stay at the hospital. Conclusions from this study suggest that although depression appears to be prevalent in the hospitalized cardiac patient, physician detection of such is very low.