Sunday, March 4, 2018

Heart attack patients prescribed antidepressants have lower one-year survival rates, according to research presented today at Acute Cardiovascular Care 2018, a European Society of Cardiology congress.


After adjusting for baseline characteristics the researchers found that the rates of stroke and subsequent heart attacks were similar between the two groups, but patients prescribed antidepressants had significantly worse survival. The rate of all-cause mortality at one-year after discharge was 7.4% in patients prescribed antidepressants compared to 3.4% for those not prescribed antidepressants ( P value less than 0.001).

Antidepressant prescription was an independent predictor for mortality, and increased the odds by 66% (odds ratio: 1.66; 95% confidence interval: 1.16 to 2.39).

"This was an observational study so we cannot conclude that antidepressants caused the higher death rate," noted Ms Fehr.

She concluded: "Our study showed that many patients are treated with antidepressants after a heart attack. More research is needed to pinpoint the causes and underlying pathological mechanisms for the higher mortality we observed in this patient group."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180303095445.htm

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