© 2004 American Public Health Association
Judith A. Cook, Dennis Grey, and Jane Burke are with the Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago. Mardge H. Cohen is with the Cook County Hospital, Core Center, Chicago Ill. Alejandra C. Gurtman is with the Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY. Jean L. Richardson is with the Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Tracey E. Wilson is with the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, State University of New York Health Sciences Center at Brooklyn. Mary A. Young is with the Department of Medicine, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC. Nancy A. Hessol is with the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Judith A. Cook, PhD, Mental Health Services Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, 104 S Michigan Ave, Suite 900, Chicago, IL 60603 (e-mail: cook{at}ripco.com).
Objectives. We examined associations between depressive symptoms and AIDS-related mortality after controlling for antiretroviral therapy use, mental health treatment, medication adherence, substance abuse, clinical indicators, and demographic factors. Methods. One thousand seven hundred sixteen HIV-seropositive women completed semiannual visits from 1994 through 2001 to clinics at 6 sites. Multivariate Cox and logistic regression analyses estimated time to AIDS-related death and depressive symptom severity. Results. After we controlled for all other factors, AIDS-related deaths were more likely among women with chronic depressive symptoms, and symptoms were more severe among women in the terminal phase of their illness. Mental health service use was associated with reduced mortality. Conclusions. Treatment for depression is a critically important component of comprehensive care for HIV-seropositive women, especially those with end-stage disease.
Previous research has confirmed associations between depression and immune suppression and other negative health outcomes, such as disability and mortality.13 Recently, attention has turned to the effects of depression on the health of individuals whose immune systems have been affected by HIV infection. Yet, the relationship between depression and HIV disease progression is not well understood. For example, Sambamoorthi et al.4 found relationships between depression and HIV infection status, declines in immune function, accelerated disease progression, increased disability, shorter survival, and greater probability of death. Conversely, studies by Lyketsos et al.5 and Vedhara et al.6 challenge the characterization of depression as an independent or even a significant determinant of HIV disease progression. An additional complicating factor has been suggested by a recent study that found use of protease inhibitors reduces both depressive and clinical symptoms.7 The existence of a potential association between womens depression and HIV disease progression is of interest to both health care providers and patients for several reasons. First, womens rate of depression is twice as high as that of men among the general population.8 Second, HIV-seropositive women who have high levels of depressive symptomatology are significantly less likely to use highly active antiretroviral therapies.9 Third, depression is associated with poor adherence to antiretroviral treatment regimens,10,11 which in turn is associated with poor disease outcomes, such as mortality.12 Finally, depression is a significant predictor of nonAIDS-related deaths (e.g., those caused by accident, drug overdose, violence, and nonAIDS-associated malignancies) among HIV-seropositive women.13 Only 1 previous study of a cohort of HIV-seropositive womenthe longitudinal study of the 4-site HIV Epidemiologic Research Study (HERS)14has confirmed a link between chronic depressive symptomatology and poor AIDS-related outcomes. Among a cohort of HIV-seropositive women who were followed from 1993 through 2000 (demographic and clinical factors were controlled), the women who had chronic depressive symptoms were twice as likely to die as the women who reported no depressive symptoms or only intermittent ones. We attempted to replicate and expand the HERS cohort findings by using the same variable definitions and types of statistical analyses and by exploring the effects of 3 additional factors: adherence to highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) and other HIV-related therapies, use of mental health services, and occurrence of depressive symptoms during the terminal phase of AIDS-related illness. Three research questions were addressed. First, do depressive symptoms predict time to AIDS-related mortality among a cohort of HIV-seropositive women? Second, does use of mental health services lower the likelihood of AIDS-related mortality? Third, do women in the terminal phase of their AIDS-related illnesses show higher likelihood than surviving women of meeting criteria for depression at the 2 study visits preceding their deaths?
Study Background Between October 1994 and November 1995, 2059 HIV-seropositive women were enrolled in the Womens Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) at 6 medical and university consortia sites nationwide: Brooklyn, NY; Bronx, NY; Chicago, Ill; Los Angeles, Calif; San Francisco, Calif; and Washington, DC. Over the next 7.5 years, participants completed WIHS study visits at 6-month intervals. Specific responses to items in the interview protocol prompted interviewers to offer respondents referrals to medical or psychosocial services, such as gynecologic care or substance abuse treatment.
Measures We used 2 measures of longitudinal depressive symptoms to test the study hypotheses. First, following Ickovics et al.,19 depression chronicity was defined as the proportion of study visits at which the womens self-reported CES-D scores met or exceeded the clinical cutoff for probable cases of depression. In this operationalization, or way of computing a depressive symptom variable, scores that indicated depression at 75% or more of the study visits were classified as chronic, 26% to 74% were classified as intermittent, and no more than 25% were classified as none or few. Second, following Lyketsos et al.s5 "conservative" definition, scores of 16 or higher on the CES-D at 2 consecutive study visits were used to define recent depression. In our study, this was operationalized as scoring above the cutoff (1) at the last 2 study visits preceding death among women with AIDS-related deaths, and (2) at the last 2 study visits completed for all surviving women. The first operationalization of depression chronicity was used to test hypotheses 1 and 2, and the second operationalization of recent depression was used to test hypothesis 3. AIDS-related mortality. Information was collected on all participants deaths, malignancies, tuberculosis, and AIDS. Cause of death was coded from death certificates and from information obtained electronically via the National Death Index, local death registries, hospital records, physician reports, and families or friends. Deaths were classified as caused by AIDS if the cause was an AIDS-defined opportunistic infection/malignancy (consistent with 1993 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clinical surveillance conditions), or if the stated cause was organ failure or nonspecific infection and the CD4 count at the last study visit was less than 200 cells per milliliter. This methodology has been described elsewhere.13 Independent measures. Women were considered to be on a HAART regimen if they followed the International AIDS SocietyUSA panel20 and the US Department of Health and Human Services/Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Panel21 guidelines. All other antiretroviral therapy combinations were defined as non-HAART combination therapy, and use of a single antiretroviral therapy was defined as monotherapy. At each study visit, HIV antibody status, HIV-1 RNA, and CD4 T-lymphocyte count were determined with standard flow cytometry at laboratories participating in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Quality Assurance Program. Viral load was classified as less than 4000 versus greater than 4000. CD4 levels were assessed as low (< 200), moderate (200500), and high (> 500). Study participants race/ethnicity was categorized as African American, Hispanic/Latina, White, and other. Illicit drug use was categorized as use of crack, cocaine, or heroin at any time during the study. Those with high school degrees or any postsecondary education at baseline were coded as "1" and as "0" otherwise. Age at baseline was measured in decades. Employment status at baseline was defined as any paid work (full- or part-time). Presence of clinical symptoms at baseline included 1 or more HIV/AIDS-related symptoms: fever, diarrhea, memory problems, numbness, weight loss, confusion, and night sweats. Women who reported nonadherence to any HIV treatment at any study visit were classified as nonadherent and as adherent otherwise. This single-item operationalization is similar to one that was used successfully by Wilson et al.22 in a previous analysis of medication adherence among the WIHS cohort. Those women who reported no HIV-related therapies were included in the adherent classification, because nonadherence is a predictor of mortality distinct from treatment. Mental health service use was defined as receipt of care from a mental health professional or counselor that was self-reported at 1 or more study visits. Indicator variables represented 5 of the 6 study sites; Chicago served as a sixth arbitrary reference category.
Statistical Analysis
Sample characteristics. Participants who had less than 3 study visits (n = 343) were excluded from the sample so depression chronicity could be assessed longitudinally. When compared with the women who were included in the analysis (n = 1716), those with less than 3 study visits were significantly less likely to be employed (13% vs 22%) or to have used a HAART regimen for 12 or more months (1% vs 49%). The 2 groups did not differ significantly on any other variables. The demographic characteristics of the studys 1716 women at baseline closely resembled those of the larger HIV-seropositive WIHS cohort.23 Two fifths (41%) reported illicit drug use before baseline, and 39% did so during the study. Baseline CD4 counts were below 200 cells for 25% of the women, and viral loads were greater than 4000 for 68%. Use of a HAART regimen for 1 year or more was reported by 49% of the women, and 14% reported use of a non-HAART combination therapy for 1 year or more. Only 5% reported use of monotherapy for 1 year or more, and 32% reported no use of an antiretroviral therapy or use for less than 1 year. At baseline, more than half (58%) the women reported HIV-related clinical symptoms. Less than half (45%) were classified as adherent at all study visits; 37% reported perfect adherence, and 8% reported no treatment. For the remaining 55%, the mean number of visits at which nonadherence was reported was 3. Approximately one third of the women (32%) reported depressive symptoms at a level that exceeded the CES-D clinical cutoff at 75% or more of their study visits. Another third (37%) reported depressive symptoms intermittently, and the final third (31%) reported depressive symptoms at few or none of their study visits. Close to half the women (47%) exceeded the CES-D clinical cutoff at their last study visit, and one third (35%) did so at their last 2 consecutive visits, which indicated recent depression among one half to one third of the cohort. Over two thirds (69%) reported use of mental health services at 1 or more study visits.
Relationship between depressive symptoms and time to death.
Figure 1
Relationships among mortality and depressive symptoms and baseline features. The third column of Table 1
We used a Cox proportional hazards model to estimate the effect of depressive symptom chronicity on mortality after we controlled for all other model variables. As shown in the last column of Table 1
Finally, because of the time frame of our study, it is possible that these results are biased by the fact that HAART became available only to those who survived for longer periods of time. To control for this potential bias, we restricted the sample to those women who were alive during the second half of 1996 (because protease inhibitors became commercially available at the beginning of 1996) and repeated the Cox regression analysis. The results (data not shown) were virtually identical to those in Table 1
Relationships among depressive symptoms immediately preceding death, mortality, and confounding variables.
Next, we used logistic regression analysis to examine the multivariate statistical association between depressive symptoms and being in the terminal phase of AIDS-related illnesses. Level of depressive symptoms was the dependent measure, and we used Lyketsos et al.s5 "conservative" definition of meeting the CES-D cutoff at 2 consecutive study visits. These were the last 2 study visits completed by all women, excluding those who died from nonAIDS-related causes (n = 144).
As shown in the middle column of Table 2
A multivariate logistic regression analysis that controlled for all other factors found that recent clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms were associated with being in the terminal stage of illness, using mental health services, having HIV-related symptoms, and being aged 30 to 39 years. Recent depressive symptoms were significantly less likely among those who had been on a HAART regimen for 12 or more months.
Chronic depressive symptoms were significantly associated with a greater likelihood of AIDS-related mortality, even after we controlled for clinical, substance use, and sociodemographic factors. However, despite the impact of depressive symptoms, women who received mental health services were significantly less likely to die from AIDS-related causes during the study period. These results point to the importance of identifying and treating depressionthrough both pharmacological interventions and psychotherapeutic treatmentas an essential element in the comprehensive clinical care of women who have HIV. Additionally, not only chronicity but also recency of depressive symptoms was associated with AIDS-related mortality. Of those in the terminal phase of their illnesses, more than half met CES-Ddefined clinical criteria for depression at the 2 study visits before their deaths. The high proportion of women who reported depressive symptoms during the terminal phase of their AIDS-related illnesses shows the importance of including treatment for depression in end-of-life care protocols through the use of antidepressants and other treatments in hospice and similar programs. Antiretroviral therapies clearly affected mortality: those who were on a HAART regimen for a year or more were 90% less likely to experience AIDS-related mortality, and those who were on a combination antiretroviral therapy for a year or more were 70% less likely. Moreover, in our study, the proportion of women who reported recent depressive symptoms was lowest among those who were on a HAART regimen. The significantly lower proportion of women who had depressive symptoms among users of the most potent antiretroviral therapies shows the possible role of a HAART regimen in combating depression7,24 along with or in addition to the role of positive mental health in promoting use of a HAART regimen. Also important are associations between depression and AIDS-related mortality in the context of unique factors related to womens use of HAART regimens, such as health insurance status,25 which could potentially influence their access to both HIV and depression treatments. Our studys methodology did not allow us to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between depression and mortality, because both may be related to disease progression. However, the multivariate survival analysis controlled for 2 potent clinical indicators of HIV disease status (HIV viral load and CD4 cell count), and the significant relationship between mortality and depressive symptoms remained consistent despite these controls. Furthermore, post hoc analyses (data not shown) of women who did not have AIDS at baseline (i.e., CD4 > 200) revealed that those who had chronic depressive symptoms were 2.3 times more likely to die than those who had limited or no depressive symptoms (P < .05), which indicated that chronic depression was related to mortality even among those who did not have AIDS at baseline. Finally, women who died of AIDS-related causes were significantly more likely to have had CES-D scores that indicated "probable depression" at the 2 study visits immediately preceding their deaths, which established the temporally proximal, if not causal, nature of depression and mortality. Two caveats to our findings concern the use of the CES-D to measure depressive symptoms and the use of death certificates to determine cause of death. With regard to the first study limitation, operationalization of major depression through research-quality diagnostic tools, such as the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM or the Composite International Diagnostic Inventory, would have yielded a much higher-quality measure of depression as a syndrome, as would diagnostic procedures performed by a clinician who uses the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV).26 All of these approaches are highly preferable to use of a depression screening instrument, such as the CES-D, because of the latters limited specificity. However, the measure is both valid and reliable and is widely used in studies of HIV-positive cohorts, which enables direct comparisons with the results of previous studies. Moreover, the use of rigorous scientific or clinical diagnostic tools among a population of this size presents considerable logistical challenges and requires substantial interrater and intersite reliability procedures to warrant its expense and its increased subject burden. Our study also was limited by our inability to determine whether the mental health services received by the women were consistent with practice guidelines for the treatment of depression that are based on rigorous research findings. With regard to the second caveat, the causes of death obtained from death certificates may have been inaccurate. However, once again, death certificate information is commonly used in studies of this type and can provide important epidemiological information that otherwise might not be available. Additionally, the algorithm used in our study enhanced the linkage of AIDS clinical indicators (CD4 cell counts, viral load) to cause of death, which may have accounted for the substantial proportion of deaths classified as nonAIDS-related and most likely reduced chances of false-positive results.13
The findings of our study highlight a number of important and clinically meaningful associations between depressive symptoms and outcomes of women who have HIV. They suggest that antiretroviral therapy alone does not meet best-practice standards of care for this population, and therapy must be augmented by appropriate and sensitive mental health treatment, particularly as HIV disease progresses. Thus, finding ways to reduce depressive symptoms has the potential not only to prolong life but also to enhance its quality among women who have HIV.
The WIHS is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with supplemental funding from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Craniofacial and Dental Research (U01-AI-35004, U01-AI-31834, U01-AI-34994, U01-AI-34989, U01-HD-32632, U01-AI-34993, U01-AI-42590, M01-RR00079 and M01-RR00083). Data were collected by the Womens Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) Collaborative Study Group with centers (principal investigators are listed in parentheses) at the New York City/Bronx Consortium (Kathryn Anastos); Brooklyn, NY (Howard Minkoff); the Washington DC Metropolitan Consortium (Mary Young); the Connie Wofsy Study Consortium of Northern California (Ruth Greenblatt); the Los Angeles County/Southern California Consortium (Alexandra Levine); the Chicago Consortium (Mardge Cohen); and the Data Coordinating Center (Alvaro Munoz).
Human Participant Protection
Contributors J. A. Cook, D. Grey, and J. Burke designed the study, analyzed the data, and prepared the article. M. H. Cohen, A. C. Gurtman, J. L. Richardson, T. E. Wilson, M. A. Young and N. A. Hessol contributed to the data interpretation and the writing of the article. All authors reviewed drafts of the article and contributed revisions. Accepted for publication July 18, 2003.
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