Mental Health and Depression after Coronary Artery Bypass Graft

Background: Mental health of those with ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been a focus of attention of researchers since it has always been considered as a psychosomatic disorder. The present study was designed to investigate mental health status of a group of patients before and after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). Materials and Methods: In this longitudinal descriptive study 63 candidates for CABG, referred by cardiologist and cardiac surgeon in a 6 month period were asked to take part in the study if they didnʹt have any exclusion criteria. The patients were the out-patients of cardiac clinics in Shiraz, Iran. The patients were assessed by general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) and beck depression inventory (BDI) at 3 phases, before surgery, 1 month after surgery and three months after surgery. Results: The analysis did not show significant statistical change in GHQ-28 and BDI measures before and after CABG. There were statistically significant differences in the mentioned measures between male and female participants in initial assessment, i.e., women scores were higher than men in distress scores measured by GHQ-28 and BDI. Conclusion: In our study, we observed no statistically significant differences between pre and post operation in general health and depression scales. However women showed higher degrees of depressed mood at any step of assessment.