SOCIAL SUPPORT AND HOSTILITY AS PREDICTORS OF DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS IN CARDIAC PATIENTS ONE MONTH AFTER HOSPITALIZATION - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY

Objective: Hospitalization for cardiac disease is associated with an i ncreased risk for depression, which itself confers a poorer prognosis. Few prospective studies have examined the determinants of depression after hospitalization in cardiac patients, and even fewer have examine d depression within the weeks after hospital discharge. The present st udy assessed the prospective relations among perceptions of social sup port and trait hostility in predicting symptoms of depressive symptoms at 1 month after hospitalization for a diagnostic angiography in 506 coronary artery disease (CAD) patients. Method: A series of structural equation models 1) estimated the predictive relations of social suppo rt, hostility, and depressive symptoms while in the hospital to sympto ms of depression 1 month after hospitalization, and 2) compared these relations across gender, predicted risk classification, and age. Resul ts: Social support assessed during hospitalization was independently n egatively associated with depressive symptoms I month after hospitaliz ation, after controlling for baseline symptoms of depression, gender, disease severity, and age. Hostility was an indirect predictor of post discharge depressive symptomology by way of its negative relation with social support. This pattern of relations did not differ across gende r, predicted risk classification, and age. Conclusions: Our findings s uggest that a patient's perceived social support during hospitalizatio n is a determinant of depressive symptoms I month later. The relation of social support and hostility to subsequent depressive symptoms was similar across a variety of populations.