Previous studies have showed an association between emotional distress and decreased physical functioning in patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH); however, none controlled for demographic and disease characteristics. This study investigates the independent association of depressive symptoms with physical functioning after controlling for both demographic and disease characteristics. Fifty-two patients, mean age 61 (SD = 14) years, undergoing cardiac catheterization, completed self-report questionnaires of depressive symptoms and physical functioning. Results showed that depressive symptoms (beta = -.28, p < .05) accounted for a statistically significant 8% of incremental variance in physical functioning over and above the variance explained by demographic and disease characteristics. The direction of effects cannot be determined because of the cross-sectional design. As such, the association of depressive symptoms with physical functioning in PH patients indicates the need for longitudinal research regarding the possible effect of depression on disease outcomes in this population.

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