Depression is associated with an increased risk of readmission in patients with heart failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Heart failure (HF) is one of the world leading causes of admission and readmission. Recent studies have shown that the presence of depression is associated with hospital readmission in patients after an index admission for heart failure (HF). However, there is disagreement between published studies regarding this finding. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the effect of depression on readmission rates in HF patients. METHODS We searched the databases of MEDLINE and EMBASE from inception to March 2020. Included studies were published study evaluating readmission rate of HF patients, with and without depression. Data from each study were combined using a random-effects model, generic inverse variance method of DerSimonian and Laird to calculate risk ratios and 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS Ten studies were included in the meta-analysis with a total of 53,165 patients (6,194 patients with depression). The presence of depression was associated with an increased risk of readmission in patients with HF (pooled HR=1.54, 95%CI=1.22-1.94, pvalue<0.001, I2=55.4%). In a subgroup analysis, depression was associated with an increased risk of readmission in patients with HF in both short-term (≤ 90 days) followup (pooled HR=1.75, 95%CI=1.07-2.85, p-value=0.025, I2=76.0%) and long-term (> 90 days) follow-up (pooled HR=1.58, 95% CI =1.32-1.90, p-value<0.001, I2=0.0%). CONCLUSIONS Our meta-analysis demonstrated that depression is associated with an increased risk of hospital readmission in patients with HF.