Depression and Anxiety Among Coronary Heart Disease Patients: Can Affect Dimensions and Theory Inform Diagnostic Disorder‐Based Screening?

OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between low positive affect, somatic anxiety and general distress with affective disorders, anxious misery, and visceral fear among coronary heart disease patients. PARTICIPANTS: Patients awaiting a coronary revascularization procedure (N = 158; 20.9% female; median age = 65, interquartile range 58-73) underwent structured interview with the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview. Patients completed a brief version of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (i.e., Anxiety Depression Distress Inventory-27) and a measure of Type D personality. RESULTS: Somatic anxiety scores yielded an area under the curve (AUC) = .784 and 75.0% sensitivity and 68.5% specificity in relation to panic disorder. Low positive affect yielded AUC = .811 and 70.4% sensitivity and 77.1% specificity for major depression. General distress yielded AUC = .795 and 75.0% sensitivity and 72.5% specificity for generalized anxiety disorder. No affective dimension was optimally associated with the anxious misery or visceral fear cluster. Trait negative affect was not a suitable screener for any disorder. CONCLUSIONS: The Anxiety Depression Distress Inventory-27 dimensions of low positive affect and somatic anxiety provided optimal detection of depression and panic disorder, respectively, as hypothesized, supporting discriminant validity.