The association of general practitioners' awareness of depression and anxiety with change in quality of life in heart failure patients: results of the prospective observational RECODE-HF cohort study

BACKGROUND: Depression and anxiety are more prevalent in patients with heart failure (HF) than in the general population and reduce quality of life (QoL); therefore, clinical guidelines recommend screening HF patients for depression/anxiety.

OBJECTIVE: We investigated, whether the general practitioners' (GPs) awareness of patients' symptoms of depression and/or anxiety (psychosocial distress) was associated with a change in QoL.

METHODS: In this prospective observational study, we recruited 3,129 primary care HF patients in Germany. Patients completed baseline and 12-month follow-up questionnaires. Their GPs were interviewed. We identified 666 patients with psychosocial distress and compared 2 groups by analysis of covariance: 235 patients with psychosocial distress whose GP was aware of the psychosocial distress and 431 patients with psychosocial distress whose GP was unaware of such distress. Primary outcome was the change in QoL, assessed by the EQ-5D visual analogue scale.

RESULTS: Patients with psychosocial distress showed lower baseline QoL than those without (45.9 vs 64.1; P < 0.001). Within the patients with psychosocial distress, the GPs' awareness of psychosocial distress was not associated with improvement of QoL (F = 1.285; P = 0.258) or remission of psychosocial distress (odds ratio = 0.887; P = 0.608).

CONCLUSION: We found no association between the GPs' awareness of psychosocial distress and change in QoL. Although data for effective treatments of depression in HF are currently insufficient, psychosocial distress strongly impairs the QoL in HF patients. These findings might influence the development of clinical practice guidelines in HF.