THE care that comes after a cardiac arrest should include supporting mental health — especially for women, new research has found. In the five years that followed an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, or OHCA, in which the heart suddenly stops beating, women were more likely than men to receive medication to treat anxiety or depression, according to a report published Monday in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. “We recommend monitoring of social and mental well-being in individuals who survived an OHCA, not just directly after the event but also in the long-term,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Robin Smits. “This seems particularly relevant in women but will likely also benefit men.” Researchers analyzed data from 259 women and 996 men in the Netherlands who survived at least 30 days after a cardiac arrest that took place outside a hospital between 2009 and 2015. The team compared the data on patients’ socioeconomic status and mental health with those in the general population, according to the study. The amount of women taking anxiety or depression medications after cardiac arrest was also greater than in women in the general population, said Smits, a postdoctoral researcher at Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “Further investigation may shed light into which interventions are necessary for physicians to be able to help individuals thrive after OHCA,” Smits said. Researchers have been learning more and more about how closely connected mental and cardiac health are, said Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, the U.S. He was not involved in the research. One in five people hospitalized for heart attack (a blockage of blood flow to the heart) or chest pain develop major depression — about four times the rate in the general population, according to the American Heart Association. One in three stroke survivors become depressed, along with up to half of those who undergo heart bypass surgery, past studies found. (SD-Agencies) | 