The Association between Aortic Valve Stenosis and a Subsequent Diagnosis of Depression in Germany.

Background/

Objectives

Aortic valve stenosis (AS) represents one of the most common valve diseases in the western world. It often leads to severe symptoms that can lead to a restriction of everyday life and thus to psychological stress. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the association between AS and depression in outpatients in Germany.

Methods

The IQVIATM Disease Analyzer database was used to identify 14,681 individuals with non-rheumatic AS (ICD-10: I35.0 or I35.2). They were propensity score matched (1:1) based on age, sex, average yearly consultation frequency during the follow-up, and co-diagnoses to 14,681 patients without AS. Cox regression models were used to analyze the association between aortic stenosis and depression.

Results

Within the follow-up period of up to 10 years, depression was diagnosed in 20.6% of AS patients compared to 20.0% in the matched cohort (p = 0.351). In the regression analysis, we were not able to discover an association between AS and a subsequent diagnosis of depression (HR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.96-1.11). This effect was consistent among different age and sex groups.

Conclusions

In the broad population of patients treated outside of hospital settings in Germany, AS was not associated with a higher incidence of depression.