Helping Others Toward Positive Emotions in People With Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) affects 5 million people in the US and is the most common cause of
hospitalization in elderly adults. One-third of patients who are hospitalized with HF have
major depression. Depressed HF patients have double the rates of morbidity and/or mortality
and worse health-related quality of life than non-depressed HF patients. The investigators
previous pilot research suggests that a brief Cognitive Therapy (CT) intervention may
improve short-term cardiac survival among depressed hospitalized HF patients compared to
non-depressed HF patients who received usual care. Therefore, the investigators will conduct
a larger study to evaluate the effects of the intervention on longer cardiac event-free
survival, symptoms of depression, health-related quality of life, and stress levels in
patients with HF. The investigators hypothesize that patients in the intervention group will
experience longer cardiac event-free survival, lower levels of depressive symptom, better
health-related quality of life, and lower salivary cortisol levels at follow-up than
patients who receive usual care.