Depressive symptoms in outpatients with heart failure: importance of inflammatory biomarkers, disease severity and personality.

Objective: Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent in heart failure (HF) patients, however the underlying etiology of depression in HF patients remains yet unclear. Hence, the goal is to examine the relative importance of inflammation, disease severity and personality as predictors of depression in HF patients.

Design: Depressive symptoms (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, depression subscale) were assessed at baseline and one-year follow-up in 268 HF patients (75.