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UPMC to assess benefit of depression treatment in HF patients
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The University of Pittsburgh announced that it has received a 5-year, $7.3 million grant from the NHLBI to assess the effect of depression treatment on patients with HF.
The Hopeful Heart trial will consist of 750 patients with HF and depression treated at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) hospital. Participants will be randomly assigned to standard care for HF and depression; 1 year of a “blended” collaborative care intervention, provided by a nurse via telephone and coordinated with the recipient’s primary care physicians and cardiologists; or a similar intervention targeting only HF.
“Evidence-based depression treatments clearly improve health-related quality of life, yet it is presently unknown whether they also reduce morbidity and mortality, particularly in patients with CVD,” researcher Bruce L. Rollman, MD, MPH, professor of medicine, psychiatry, biomedical informatics and clinical and translational science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said in the release. “… If proven effective and cost-effective, the potentially more powerful and accessible blended care approach for treating HF and comorbid depression could have profound implications for improving chronic illness care and stimulate development of similar interventions for targeting behavioral health into routine clinical care.”
The trial follows results from a prior study conducted by Rollman and colleagues, in which patients with depression who were hospitalized for HF had a 20% mortality rate 1 year after discharge compared with 8% of HF patients who screened negative for depression.