Relationship between free fatty acids, body mass index and depressive symptoms in patients with chronic heart failure

AIM: To explore the prevalence of depressive symptoms among patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and analyse the relationship between free fatty acids (FFAs), body mass index (BMI) and depressive symptoms among patients with CHF. DESIGN: A cross‐sectional study. METHODS: Questionnaires were distributed to 200 patients with CHF in the department of Cardiology at a tertiary first‐class hospital in Shandong province. A total of 195 hospitalized patients completed the survey. Data collected from February 2017–November 2017 were analysed by using Pearson's correlation and multiple linear regression. The depressive status of the patients was assessed by the Zung Self‐rating Depression Scale (SDS), and the relationships between FFA, BMI and depressive symptoms were analysed using SPSS 20.0. RESULTS: The results showed that 71.28% CHF patients have depressive symptoms. The serum FFA level was significantly higher in CHF patients with depressive symptoms than those without depressive symptoms (p = .003), and FFA level was significantly positively correlated with the SDS score (r = .242, p = .001). The differences in SDS scores were statistically significant between two different BMI groups (p < .01), and BMI was negatively correlated with the SDS score (r = −.139, p = .040). Regression analysis showed that high FFAs (β = 0.184, p = .009) and low BMI (β = −0.116, p = .049) were risk factors for depressive symptoms in CHF patients. Gender, age, FFA and BMI were associated with depressive symptoms, accounting for 7.1% of the variance in depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of depressive symptoms in CHF patients is very high, and high FFAs and low BMI are risk factors for depressive symptoms. Targeted interventions to strengthen nutritional support in CHF patients may be benefit to improve depression‐related outcomes.