MedWire News: People often suffer from depression after a heart attack, but this is not a sign that they are at an increased risk of dying over the next few years, researchers say.

Their findings, based on almost 300 patients admitted to hospital after having a heart attack, contrast with an earlier study of the same patients.

The team previously reported that patients who were depressed after a heart attack were more likely to die over the next 4 months than those who were not depressed.

About one in six patients experience major depression after a heart attack and more than twice as many suffer significant depressive symptoms.

For the latest trial, Roy Zeigelstein (John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) and colleagues interviewed 284 patients admitted to hospital with a heart attack about symptoms of depression.

The patients were aged an average of 65 years. Most had hypertension and about a third were also suffering from diabetes.

Just under half of the patients died over the 8 years following the heart attack, the researchers report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The odds of dying were not significantly associated with depression at the time of the heart attack.

Zeigelstein and co-workers conclude that depression after a heart attack was associated with "increased short-term mortality, but its relation with mortality over time appeared to wane."

However, they point out that this was the case in their study of older patients who had suffered heart attacks and had concurrent medical conditions.