Does high social support reduce 1-year cardiac mortality in depressed post-MI patients?
High social support may mitigate the increased mortality risk associated with post-MI depression by improving depressive symptoms.
Post-MI depression is a predictor of 1-year cardiac mortality, but social support is not directly related to survival. However, very high levels of support appear to buffer the impact of depression on mortality. Furthermore, high levels of support predict improvements in depression symptoms over the first post-MI year in depressed patients. High levels of support may protect patients from the negative prognostic consequences of depression because of improvements in depression symptoms.
Frasure‐Smith et al. (Tue,) studied this question.