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Depressive Symptoms in Elderly Patients After a Somatic Illness Event

Prevalence, Persistence, and Risk Factors

Received September 21, 2004; revised January 25, 2005; accepted February 21, 2005. From the Dept. of Psychiatry, Univ. of Groningen; Health Care Studies, Medical Sociology, Maastricht University; Northern Centre for Healthcare Research, Dept. of Public Health and Health Psychology, Univ. of Groningen; the Dept. of Internal Medicine, Academic Medical Center, Groningen. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. de Jonge, Dept. of Psychiatry, Univ. of Groningen, P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB, Groningen, The Netherlands. e-mail: p.de.jonge{at}med.rug.nl

Elderly patients with somatic illness are at increased risk of depression. The authors studied the prevalence and persistence of depressive symptoms during the first year after the events of myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, fall-related injury, and the diagnosis of cancer and their putative pre-event risk factors. The GLAS study contains data from 614 patients who experienced post-baseline myocardial infarction, cancer, heart failure, or fall-related injury of the extremities within 5 years after the baseline assessment. Follow-up was conducted 8 weeks, 6 months, and 1 year after the somatic event. The authors studied the relative importance of 21 baseline risk factors for experiencing significant depressive symptoms during follow-up and the persistence of depression. Depressive symptoms were prevalent in 38.3% of the subjects during the post-event year; in about 19.1%, symptoms were mild. For a majority of patients (67.5%), symptoms persisted until the next assessment. Significant pre-event risk factors were depressive symptoms at baseline, age, smoking, poor general health, poor well-being, and neuroticism. Within the depressed group, only neuroticism was related to the persistence of symptoms. Neuroticism increases the risk of experiencing post-event depressive symptoms and is related to their persistence, which suggests the existence of a depression-prone personality.

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