Chronic kidney disease patients with depression at complications risk

WASHINGTON - UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found that patients with chronic kidney disease who have been diagnosed with depression are twice as likely to be hospitalized, progress to long-term dialysis treatments or die within a year as those who are not depressed.

In the study, researchers monitored for one year 267 patients with chronic kidney disease - 56 of them with a diagnosis of a current major depressive episode, referred to here as depression, based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition (DSM-IV).

Nearly 61 percent of patients with depression compared to 44 percent without depression either died, progressed to long-term dialysis, or were hospitalized within a year of observation; 55 percent of depressed patients were hospitalized compared to 40 percent of patients who were not depressed; 27 percent of depressed patients needed to start regular dialysis treatments compared to 11 percent without depression; and 9 percent of depressed individuals died compared to 6 percent without depression.

“Chronic kidney disease patients with depression have poorer health outcomes than those without depression, even after adjusting for other factors that determine poor outcomes in these patients, such as other medical diseases, anemia and low albumin levels,” said Dr. Susan Hedayati, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern, staff nephrologist at the Dallas VA Medical Center and lead author of the study.

“Clinicians should consider screening chronic kidney disease atients for
depression, especially since depression is also associated with poor quality of life,” she added.

The study appears in the May 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. (ANI)