Helping Others Toward Positive Emotions in People With Heart Failure

Study Summary

Heart failure (HF) affects 5 million people in the US and is the most common cause of hospitalization in elderly adults. One-third of patients who are hospitalized with HF have major depression. Depressed HF patients have double the rates of morbidity and/or mortality and worse health-related quality of life than non-depressed HF patients. The investigators previous pilot research suggests that a brief Cognitive Therapy (CT) intervention may improve short-term cardiac survival among depressed hospitalized HF patients compared to non-depressed HF patients who received usual care. Therefore, the investigators will conduct a larger study to evaluate the effects of the intervention on longer cardiac event-free survival, symptoms of depression, health-related quality of life, and stress levels in patients with HF. The investigators hypothesize that patients in the intervention group will experience longer cardiac event-free survival, lower levels of depressive symptom, better health-related quality of life, and lower salivary cortisol levels at follow-up than patients who receive usual care.

Primary Outcome

To compare cardiac event-free survival at 3 months, 6 months, and up to five years between patients with HF and depressive symptoms who receive a brief cognitive therapy intervention (depressive symptom intervention group) and patients with HF and depressive symptoms who receive usual care (depressive symptom usual care group).

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Brief Cognitive Therapy Intervention

Study Locations (1)