Depression of chronic medical inpatients in China

Odds of major depression have significantly increased among adults with chronic diseases. However, the diagnosis of depression is often unrecognized in China. To know the prevalence of depression in medical inpatients with different chronic diseases and to assess the level of unrecognized depression among hospitalized patients, we assessed depression in patients with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and chronic pulmonary heart disease. In this study, it has been shown that 78.9% of patients with pulmonary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, or coronary heart disease have different levels of depression. There were no significant differences in incidence of depression among different gender, age, education levels, marital status, or course of disease. There were no significant differences in total incidence rate of depression and in incidence rate of different levels of depression among the three groups of patients. It is very important to help patients with chronic diseases to reduce their depression by psychological nursing after evaluating their mental status. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.