All-cause mortality in older people having heart disease with depression: A rural community-based cohort study in China
Weiju Zhou and Ruoling Chen
University of Wolverhampton, UK
: Int J Cardiovas Res
Abstract
Background: Older people suffer from more heart diseases (HD) and depression, both of which increase all-cause mortality. It is little known on the impact of HD with depression on survival in older people living in rural areas, where the risks of HD and depression are different from their urban counterparts. Methods: We examined the Anhui cohort study in China, which consisted of 1600 participants aged >=60 years who live in rural areas life-long. We conducted baseline health survey in 2003 using a standard method of interview, documenting any type of HD and diagnosing any depression (cases and subcases) from the GMS-AGECAT for each participant. In 2004, 2007 and 2011 we successfully re-interviewed surviving cohort members and monitored vital status of the cohort until 2012. Results: Of 1600 participants, 1429 (89.3%) were followed up, of which 385 deaths were documented. There were significant differences in death rate among participants of having HD and depression (42.3%, 11/26), having HD without depression (35.4%, 23/65), having depression without HD (35.1%, 149/424) and having neither HD nor depression (22.1%, 202/914). After adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, educational level, smoking, alcohol drinking, living with somebody, hypertension, diabetes and stroke at baseline, hazard ratio of all-cause mortality was 2.01 (1.07-3.77) in those having HD and depression, 1.53 (0.99-2.37) in HD only and 1.67 (1.34-2.08) in depression only, compared to those without HD and depression. Conclusions: Older people living in rural areas with HD and depression had an additional increase in all-cause mortality. Psychological interventions should be taken for those with HD living in rural areas to improve surviving outcome.
Biography
Weiju Zhou is a PhD student in Epidemiology and Global Health Research under the supervision of Prof Ruoling Chen (DoS) at University of Wolverhampton, UK. His research interests are socioeconomic status (SES) and cardiovascular diseases. He examines the data of the Anhui cohort study and the four-province health survey on older population in China, to address important research questions in health inequality. He has co-authored two papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
