Relationship of cardiac inpatients' outcomes to mood state.

Abstract

This descriptive study used a computerized charge capture system (CCCS) to explore the differences of cost and length of stay (LOS) between cardiac inpatients with a diagnosis of depression (n = 144) and cardiac inpatients without depression (n = 9,099). Level of severity, gender, and mood state (depression vs. nondepression) were also compared. A matched sample of 352 nondepressed patients was compared with a sample of 94 depressed patients. There were no significant differences between the depressed and nondepressed groups. However, the study did indicate interesting findings regarding mood state, gender, and cardiac outcomes. Depression was significantly overrepresented among females (chi 2 = 24.0, df = 1, P < 0.05). When gender and mood state were considered together, women with cardiac disease who were depressed had significantly longer lengths of stay (LOSs) and increased costs than men with depression (F = 6.6, df = 1, P = 0.01). A major unanticipated finding was the extremely low incidence of depression detected in these patients (1.6%) when compared with patients in other studies. One possible reason for the low incidence of depression was related to the use of a financial, rather than a clinical, data set.