Background: More than half of patients admitted to hospital for acute chest pain are diagnosed as having non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP). While there are well established guidelines for diagnosing and treating patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD), an international consensus approach to treat patients with NCCP is lacking. This lack of structured care may possibly cause mental distress in patients and increased health care utilization.

Objectives: To compare depressive symptoms and health care utilization in patients admitted for NCCP and patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and angina pectoris (AP) post-hospitalization and at one-year follow-up.

Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive and comparative design was used. In total 131 patients with NCCP, 66 with AMI and 70 with AP completed two depression screening questionnaires 2-3 weeks after the hospital stay and one year later. Data on health care utilization were collected from a population-based diagnose-related database.

Results: Depressive symptoms were found in 27% of the participants post-hospitalization and in 26% one year later. At follow-up, 17 patients had recovered from their depressive symptoms, 37 patients had continuous depressive symptoms, and 26 patients had developed depressive symptoms. No difference in depressive symptoms was found between the different diagnose groups neither at baseline nor at follow-up. Patients diagnosed with NCCP visited health care providers in primary care as often as patients diagnosed with AMI, but had fewer hospital admissions. Patients with AP and patients with depressive symptoms utilized most health care services.

Conclusion: Persisting depressive symptoms are frequently seen among patients with NCCP as well as in patients with IHD. NCCP patients utilize as much primary care resources as AMI patients. This might imply a need for interventions targeting depressive symptoms in patients with both NCCP and IHD.