Prognostic Association of Depression Following Myocardial Infarction With Mortality and Cardiovascular Events: A Meta-analysis

To assess the association of depression following myocardial infarction (MI) and cardiovascular prognosis.

The authors performed a meta-analysis of references derived from MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PSYCINFO (1975–2003) combined with crossreferencing without language restrictions. The authors selected prospective studies that determined the association of depression with the cardiovascular outcome of MI patients, defined as mortality and cardiovascular events within 2 years from index MI. Depression had to be assessed within 3 months after MI using established psychiatric instruments. A quality assessment was performed.