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Thursday, April 15, 2004A new study shows that if you had a heart attack and survived it, your chances of having another attack within a year are halved if you have close friends and/or relatives who love you (in comparison to patients who do not have close friends and loving relatives). You have to be a subscriber to get the full article, but the abstract only gives concrete numbers for depression and hedges on the value of loved ones by only expressing the hazard ratio: At 12 months’ follow up mortality and further cardiac events were assessed in 583 of 654 eligible patients (90% response); 140 of 589 for whom baseline data were collected (23.8%) were depressed before their MI. Patients who were depressed before their MI were not more likely to die (mortality 5.2% v 5.0% of non-depressed patients) or suffer further cardiac events (cardiac events rate 20.7% v 20.3% of non-depressed patients). After controlling for demographic factors and severity of MI, the absence of a close confidant predicted further cardiac events (hazard ratio 0.57, p = 0.022). Makes one wonder if the actual difference between beloved patients and crumudgeonly ones was as significant as the stories make it sound. posted by Sydney on 4/15/2004 09:36:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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