Preliminary results of a pilot program on depression in patients with congestive heart failure

While the sample size is too small to warrant conclusions, these preliminar y results suggest that assessment of depression would be worthwhile for pat ients diagnosed with congestive heart failure. 32 out of 54 patients with c ongestive heart failure scored positive for depression. When psychiatric tr eatment was given, there was a decrease in depressive symptoms for four of the six patients at the 6-mo. retest. A decrease in depressive symptoms was found for two of the six untreated patients, and the remaining four patien ts had worse scores on the Zung Depression Inventory. Primary care physicia ns, mho typically meet with such patients regularly, are encouraged to scre en for depression, as their clinical assessments in this study were associa ted with scores on the Zung Depression Inventory. These observations suppor t a full scale investigation with a much larger sample size and a requisite medical cost comparison.