Apathy and depressive symptoms in older people and incident myocardial infarction, stroke, and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data.

Background: Previous findings suggest that apathy symptoms independently of depressive symptoms measured using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) in older individuals.

Aims: To study whether apathy and depressive symptoms in older people are associated with future CVD, stroke, and mortality using individual patient-data meta-analysis.

Methods: Medline, Embase, and PsycInfo databases up to September 3, 2013, were systematically searched without language restrictions.