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eIMPACT Trial: Modernized Collaborative Care to Reduce the Excess CVD Risk of Older Depressed Patients

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the #1 killer of American men and women, and its economic burden is substantial and on the rise. Adults with depression are at elevated risk of CVD events and poor CVD prognosis. Unfortunately, past clinical trials of depression treatments have not observed the anticipated cardiovascular benefits. A novel explanation for these null results is that the depression interventions in these trials, which all involved patients with preexisting CVD, were delivered too late in the natural history of CVD. Accordingly, the objective of this single-center, parallel-group, assessor-blinded randomized controlled trial was to determine whether successful depression treatment before, versus after, the onset of clinical CVD reduces CVD risk in depression.

Primary care patients with depression and elevated CVD risk from a safety net healthcare system (N = 216, Mage = 59 years, 78% female, 50% Black, 46% with income <$10,000/year) were randomized 1:1 to 12 months of the eIMPACT intervention (a modernized collaborative stepped care program involving internet cognitive-behavioral therapy [CBT], telephonic CBT, and/or select antidepressants) or usual primary care for depression (primary care providers supported by embedded behavioral health clinicians and psychiatrists). The primary outcome was endothelial dysfunction (brachial flow-mediated dilation) at 12 months, and the secondary outcomes were self-reported depressive symptoms (Hopkins Symptom Checklist-20), autonomic dysfunction (high-frequency heart rate variability), systemic inflammation (interleukin-6 and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein), and platelet activation (β-thromboglobulin and platelet factor 4) at 12 months. The central hypothesis was that the eIMPACT intervention would improve endothelial dysfunction in depressed adults by decreasing depressive symptoms, autonomic dysfunction, systemic inflammation, and platelet activation. Primary results are posted to ClinicalTrials.gov at NCT02458690.

The de-identified limited dataset available on BDC consists of only the individual phenotypic data needed to confirm this trial’s primary results – i.e., randomization status, primary and secondary outcome variables, and participant characteristics utilized in the hypothesis-testing models (age, sex, race, education, income, and systolic blood pressure). We also provide the SAS code to replicate the results of the hypothesis-testing models reported in Table 4 and Supplemental Tables 1-3 in the main outcomes paper (#2 in Selected Publications). Of note, the user will need to specify the file path for the dataset to run the SAS code.

Instructions for requesting individual-level data are available on BDC at https://biodatacatalyst.nhlbi.nih.gov/resources/data/. Apply for data access in dbGaP. Upon approval, users may begin accessing requested data in BDC. For questions about availability, you may contact the BDC team at https://biodatacatalyst.nhlbi.nih.gov/contact.