Presenter: Anne-Marie Kimbell, PhD, Charles Shinaver, PhD

Depression has been found to be comorbid with a variety of chronic medical conditions. We will briefly discuss several conditions including hypertension (HTN), Diabetes Mellitus (DM), coronary artery disease (CAD), congestive heart failure (CHF), stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD and end stage renal disease (ESRD) found to be associated with depression. We will also consider Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and patients seeking bariatric surgery. A critical possible implication of this comorbidity is the finding in one meta-analysis that depression along with various long term medical conditions predicted increased use of urgent and unscheduled care use while in another meta-analysis this was not the case. We will consider these findings. Finally, we will review the impact of depression upon functioning and caregivers.