Patient Health Questionnaire

Assessing benefits of aficamten (Cytokinetics) on obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) symptom burden and QOL at 6 months.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Aficamten was associated with sustained improvement in patient-reported symptom burden and quality of life at 6 months when used to treat obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a speaker reported.

HF severity objectively measured by ventilatory efficiency during exercise was more closely associated with all-cause death and hospitalization compared with subjective, patient-perceived measures of HF severity, researchers reported.

Administration of the Patient Health Questionnaire-2, or PHQ-2, followed by the PHQ-9 appeared to be an effective method for accurate depression screening, according to results of a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA.

Patients with a history of depression and at risk for CVD who wore an activity tracker for 8 weeks had improvements in life functioning and depression, according to preliminary data from the Healthy Hearts Healthy Minds study presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies 53rd Annual Convention.

High remission rates were observed in patients with three or more follow-up visits after routine depression screening and treatment, according to findings recently published in Annals of Family Medicine.