A new report conducted by researchers at McGill University and the University of Montreal, Canada, suggests that women’s risk of depression following a heart attack is about 50%, twice that of men’s 25% risk for depression.
Researchers explained that, since depression leaves heart attack sufferers more susceptible to future attacks, “the need to provide effective and safe treatment strategies” for depression is “imperative.” Given that patients’ emotional health has a strong influence on their physical condition, researchers called for doctors to spend more time assessing patients’ psychological health.
Unmarried men were more susceptible to depression than were married men, while the opposite was true for women. The report read, “among women, the unmarried and those living alone were less likely to be depressed.”
