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The article reports on research which was conducted to investigate the health outcomes of older people who underwent hip fracture surgery. Researchers evaluated the physical and mental health of 142 patients aged 60 and older two years after their hip surgery. They found that the presence of depression symptoms was associated with poor outcomes two year following surgery and that few hip surgery patients developed or recovered from depression two years after their surgery.

Objective: Depression after hip fracture surgery is prevalent and associated with increased mortality rates and impaired functional recovery. The incidence of new-onset depressive symptoms in patients initially not depressed after hip fracture surgery and their relationship with functional recovery is unknown. Methods: A cohort of 139 nondepressed elderly patients (>60 years) hospitalized for hip fracture surgery were followed up for six months. Clinically significant depressive symptoms were defined as a score of 7 or more on the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. Results: The authors found a cumulative incidence rate of 20.5% adjusted for dropouts. Multiple Cox-regression analyses yielded the presence of subthreshold symptoms of depression, anxiety, pain, and cognitive impairment at baseline, the premorbid level of mobility, and a history of (treated) depression as risk factors for incident depression (h <0.05). A forward, conditional procedure identified postoperative pain (hazard ratio [HR] =1.32, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.14-1.53, Wald χ² = 13.57, df = 1, p <0.001) and baseline anxiety (HR = 1.25, 95% CI. 1.08-1.44, Wald χ² = 8.86, df = 1, p = 0.003) as the strongest independent risk factors. Incident depression was associated with a less favorable outcome at 3 months follow-up. Conclusion: This exploratory study identified two treatable baseline characteristics that predicted incident depression in nondepressed patients after hip-fracture surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]