High Mortality Rates with Depression in Rheumatoid Arthritis Save
A Danish cohort study has shown a deadly association between depression and rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Using data from the national Danish rheumatologic database, DANBIO, they identified incident RA patients (between 2008 to 2018) and five random non-RA comparators. Drug use (antidepressants), socioeconomic status, mortality, and cause of death were identified from other registers.
RA patients with depression had a significantly elevated all-cause mortality (adjusted HRR 5.34; 3.02, 9.45) in the first 2 years and overall was 3 fold higher than RA patients without depression (HRR 3.15; 2.62, 3.79). Mortality was highest in patients <55 years (HRR 8.13; 3.89, 17.02). The most frequent natural causes of death were cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and pneumonia.
A similar increase in all-cause mortality was seen comparing non-RA patiets with depression versus those without depression.
Depression is a significant predictor of death, in RA and non-RA patients.
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