Commentary on King KM, Colella TJF, Faris P & Thompson DR (2009) Using the cardiac depression scale in men recovering from coronary artery bypass surgery. Journal of Clinical Nursing 18, 1617-1624

摘要

Patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) who require coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery are usually older and are more likely to have multiple comorbidities compared with those undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions (Niles et al. 2001). In addition to this increase in disease burden, the prevalence of depressive symptomatology among patients after CABG surgery has also been shown to be as high as 23% (Pirraglia et al. 1999). Depression and depressive symptoms are prevalent in people with CHD and are associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes (Whooley et al. 2008). There is strong evidence that the detection and treatment of depression improves health outcomes (Somberg & Arora 2008), thus underscoring the importance of screening for depression in the cardiac care setting. As King et al. (2009) correctly highlight, the detection of even mild depression in patients following CABG surgery is important, and the cardiac depression scale (CDS), designed specifically to identify depression in patients with cardiac disease, has been shown to be sensitive in detecting a broad spectrum of depressive symptoms in patients with cardiac disease (Hare & Davis 1996).