Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Jun 19, 2024; 14(6): 857-865
Published online Jun 19, 2024. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i6.857
Clinical intervention effect of Xuefu Zhuyu decoction on chronic heart failure complicated with depression
Ying Wang, Jun Wang, Wang Lv, Hu Chen, Qian Yang, Yang Zhang, Run Guo, Xiao-Li Ma, Qian-Yu Zhang
Ying Wang, Wang Lv, Hu Chen, Qian Yang, Yang Zhang, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China
Jun Wang, Run Guo, Xiao-Li Ma, Qian-Yu Zhang, Department of Cardiology, Cangzhou Central Hospital, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China
Author contributions: Ying Wang designed the research and wrote the first manuscript; Ying Wang, Jun Wang, Wang Lv, Hu Chen, Qian Yang, Yang Zhang, Run Guo, Xiao-Li Ma and Qian-Yu Zhang contributed to conceiving the research and analyzing data; Ying Wang conducted the analysis and provided guidance for the research; all authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Scientific Research Plan Project of Hebei Provincial Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 2018507.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of Cangzhou Central Hospital (Approval No. 2017-011-01).
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous clinical data that were obtained after each patient agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Wang has nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: All data and materials are available from the corresponding author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ying Wang, MM, Doctor, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Cangzhou Central Hospital, No. 16 Xinhua West Road, Cangzhou 061000, Hebei Province, China. wangying_30@126.com
Received: February 28, 2024
Revised: May 6, 2024
Accepted: May 8, 2024
Published online: June 19, 2024
Processing time: 112 Days and 2 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The diagnosis and treatment of depression in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) is challenging, with no ideal treatment at present.

AIM

To analyze the clinical intervention effect of Xuefu Zhuyu decoction (XFZYD) on CHF complicated with depression.

METHODS

The study cohort comprised 116 patients with CHF complicated with depression who received treatment from July 2020 to July 2023, of which 55 received Western medicine (control group) and 61 received XFZYD (research group). Data on clinical effectiveness, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome score, cardiac function, negative emotions, and serum inflammatory factors, were collected for comparative analyses.

RESULTS

Compared with the control group, the research group had an evidently higher total effective rate. Furthermore, there were marked reductions in TCM symptom score, left ventricular end-diastolic diameter, left ventricular end-systolic diameter, Self-Rating Depression Scale, Hamilton Depression Scale, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 in the research group after treatment, and these were lower than the corresponding values in the control group. Left ventricular ejection fraction was increased and higher in the research group compared with the control group after treatment.

CONCLUSION

Our findings conclusively proved that XFZYD was considerably superior to Western medicine for treating CHF complicated with depression because it significantly alleviated patients’ symptoms, improved cardiac function, relieved negative emotions, and reduced the levels of serum inflammatory factors.

Keywords: Xuefu Zhuyu decoction, Chronic heart failure, Depression, Cardiac function, Negative emotions

Core Tip: Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a hemodynamic disorder that leads to systolic and diastolic dysfunction and increases the risk of diabetes and chronic kidney disease. Additionally, the risk of depression in patients with CHF can reach up to 60%, and the diagnosis and treatment of depression in this patient population is challenging because there is no ideal therapy for this comorbidity. This study comparatively analyzed the clinical effects of Xuefu Zhuyu decoction (XFZYD) vs Western medicine in patients with CHF complicated with depression from the perspectives of clinical efficacy, traditional Chinese medicine symptom score, cardiac function, negative emotions, and serum inflammatory factor levels. We found that the clinical efficacy of XFZYD was significantly higher than Western medicine for treating CHF complicated with depression and significantly reduced patients’ symptoms, improved cardiac function, alleviated negative emotions, and inhibited serum inflammatory factors. Therefore, XFZYD is highly beneficial for improving the efficacy and clinical outcomes of patients with CHF complicated with depression.