• Himali Weerahandi, Nathan Goldstein, Laura P Gelfman, Ulrich Jorde, James N Kirkpatrick, Edith Meyerson, Judith Marble, Yoshifumi Naka, Sean Pinney, Mark S Slaughter, Emilia Bagiella, and Deborah D Ascheim.
• Division of General Internal Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY, NY, USA. Electronic address: Himali.weerahandi@nyumc.org.
• J Pain Symptom Manage. 2017 Aug 11.

ContextVentricular assist devices (VADs) improve quality of life in advanced heart failure (HF) patients, but there are little data exploring psychological symptoms in this population.ObjectiveThis study examined the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms and disease over time in VAD patients.MethodsThis prospective multicenter cohort study enrolled patients immediately before or after VAD implant and followed them up to forty-eight weeks. Depression and anxiety were assessed with PROMIS SF8a questionnaires. The panic disorder, acute stress disorder (ASD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) modules of the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM were used.ResultsEighty-seven patients were enrolled. Post-implant, depression and anxiety scores decreased significantly over time (p=0.03 and p<0.001 respectively). Two patients met criteria for panic disorder early after implantation but symptoms resolved over time. None met criteria for ASD or PTSD.ConclusionsOur study suggests VADs do not cause serious psychological harms and may have a positive impact on depression and anxiety. Furthermore, VADs did not induce PTSD, panic disorder or ASD in this cohort.Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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