Statement of principal findings
DM, depressive, CAD, depressive symptoms, hypertension, diabetes
HYPERTENSION, CAD, DIABETES
The main finding in our study was that baseline depressive symptoms were associated with a decrease in the health-related quality of life after 12 months of follow-up, particularly in patients with CAD and diabetes. To our best knowledge, this is the first study where a change in HRQoL was studied in relation to depressive symptoms in primary care patients with hypertension, CAD and diabetes in a 12-month follow-up setting. Interestingly, a significant decrease in HRQoL related to depressive symptoms was evident not only in mood-related dimensions but also in many other functions. The decrease was the widest in CAD patients, encompassing 9 dimensions, and the narrowest in hypertension with 3 dimensions.A deterioration in HRQoL was associated with the severity of depressive symptoms at baseline in CAD and DM patients such that the greater the BDI score at the baseline, the greater the decrease in HRQoL. The change was not only statistically but also clinically significant in CAD and DM patients. Even mild baseline depressive symptoms seemed to predict worse HRQoL after a year.