Association of anxiety disorders and depression with incident heart failure.

Objective: Depression has been associated with increased risk of heart failure (HF). Because anxiety is highly comorbid with depression, we sought to establish if anxiety, depression, or their co-occurrence is associated with incident HF.

Methods: A retrospective cohort (N = 236,079) including Veteran's Administration patients (age, 50-80 years) free of cardiovascular disease (CVD) at baseline was followed up between 2001 and 2007.