This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on Web of Science (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Related letter  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Psychiatry  • Depression  • Cardiovascular System  • Diagnosis  • Cardiovascular Disease/ Myocardial Infarction  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: The American Heart Association (AHA) recently recommended routine screening for depression in patients with coronary heart disease.¹ Shortly thereafter, Dr Thombs and colleagues² published a systematic review of the research on depression screening and clinical outcomes in cardiovascular patients. They found no studies that evaluated whether routine screening for depression produces better outcomes in patients with heart disease. They concluded that "the adoption of depression screening in cardiovascular care settings . . . would not be likely to benefit patients in the absence of significant changes in current models of care." We disagree with some of their conclusions.

Symptoms of depression double the risk for mortality and other cardiac events in patients with coronary disease. The risk is even greater for patients with an interview-based clinical diagnosis of depression.³ Regardless of whether treating depression can improve cardiac outcomes, depression is a cardiac risk marker and its presence warrants more aggressive cardiac . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Robert M. Carney, PhD
carneyr@bmc.wustl.edu

Kenneth E. Freedland, PhD
Department of Psychiatry
Washington University School of Medicine
St Louis, Missouri

Allan S. Jaffe, MD
Department of Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, Minnesota

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Depression Screening and Patient Outcomes in Cardiovascular Care: A Systematic Review
Brett D. Thombs, Peter de Jonge, James C. Coyne, Mary A. Whooley, Nancy Frasure-Smith, Alex J. Mitchell, Marij Zuidersma, Chete Eze-Nliam, Bruno B. Lima, Cheri G. Smith, Karl Soderlund, and Roy C. Ziegelstein
JAMA. 2008;300(18):2161-2171.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED LETTER

Depression Screening in Patients With Heart Disease—Reply
Brett D. Thombs, Peter de Jonge, and Roy C. Ziegelstein
JAMA. 2009;301(13):1338.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT