Health-care costs for patients hospitalized for heart failure are higher if the patient has depression, according to a UW researcher and colleagues in the Sept. 9 Archives of Internal Medicine.
Mark Sullivan, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, led a research group that evaluated the medical records of 1,098 HMO patients after a first hospitalization for heart failure. The researchers identified three depression groups: patients with no depression, patients with antidepressant prescription only, and patients with an antidepressant prescription and a diagnosis of depression. Costs were 26 percent higher for patients in the antidepressant-only group, and 29 percent higher for patients who received an antidepressants and a clinical diagnosis of depression, compared to patients with no depression. The average annual health care costs for these patients were $7,474 in the no-depression group (n=672), $11,012 for the prescription-only group (n=312) and $9,500 for the prescription and diagnosis group (n=114).
The conclusion was that the increased cost for people with depression who suffer from heart failure was due to increased inpatient and outpatient medical utilization, not increased mental health utilization.
September 13, 2002