Women with perinatal depression have a 36% increased risk for cardiovascular disease, according to new study findings.
Methods
The study analyzed data from the Swedish national health registers and included 55,539 women diagnosed with perinatal depression (PND) and 545,567 unaffected women matched by age (mean age 30.8) and year of conception/delivery, all followed until 2020. Multivariable Cox models were used to estimate hazard ratios for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type-specific CVD related to PND status.
Results
Over a follow-up period of up to 20 years, 3,533 (6.4%) women with PND developed CVD, a significant increase compared to 20,202 (3.7%) unaffected women. Women with PND exhibited a 36% higher risk of developing CVD compared to their unaffected counterparts. The analysis showed particularly high risks for hypertensive disease (HR = 1.50), ischemic heart disease (HR = 1.37), and heart failure (HR = 1.36). Sensitivity analyses and stratified analyses, including consideration of psychiatric comorbidities, confirmed the robustness of the findings.
Conclusion
The findings support the potential benefit of enhanced surveillance and early intervention strategies, noted investigators in their research published in the European Heart Journal. Further studies should look at the pathways connecting PND with CVD and to validate the findings across different populations and settings.
"Although familial factors may partly play a role here, our findings lend support to the ongoing discussion on factoring in reproductive history, including PND, for CVD risk assessment and prediction in women," the investigators concluded.
They declared no relevant conflicts of interest.