NEW ORLEANS – Younger women with acute MI are a particularly high-priority target population in terms of screening for and treatment of postinfarct depression, Susmita Mallik, M.D., said at the annual scientific sessions of the American Heart Association.
She reported on 2,501 patients admitted with acute MI to 19 U.S. medical centers participating in the Prospective Registry Evaluating Outcomes After Myocardial Infarction: Events and Recovery (PREMIER) study. Roughly half the patients were age 60 or younger, and 815 participants were women.
The prevalence of in-hospital depression–as defined by a score of at least 10 on the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders Brief Patient Health Questionnaire–was 40% in women and 22% in men age 60 or younger, and 21% among women and 16% in men above age 60, reported Dr. Mallik of Emory University, Atlanta.
After adjusting for several factors, the odds of in-hospital depression after n acute MI were nearly fourfold greater in women under age 60 than in men over age 60.