Outcomes Among Patients with Mental Illness and Heart Failure

Patients with psychiatric disorders, especially depression, are at increased risk for developing cardiac disease. To compare differences in cardiac treatment between patients with and those without comorbid mental illnesses, researchers reviewed records of 53,314 Medicare beneficiaries with discharge diagnoses of heart failure. They examined two accepted measures of quality of care in heart failure (evaluation of left ventricular ejection fraction [LVEF] and prescription of an angiotensin-converting–enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin-receptor blocker), plus 1-year mortality and readmission rates.

Seventeen percent of patients had comorbid psychiatric diagnoses under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-9) schema. The most common we…