Poststroke depression, quality of life and activities of daily life performances in stroke survivores

Introduction: Stroke is a major cause of disability and stroke survivors experience a wide variety of physical dysfunctions (such as problems in transfer and activity of daily living, ADL) and mental dysfunctions (such as post stroke depression, PSD). In many cases, these two factors can bidirectional affect each other and have substantial adverse effects on the stroke survivor's Quality Of Life (QOL). Because mutual interactions between body and mental state construct person's integrity, it's necessary to examine the functional relationship between these three stroke consequences. Methods: The relationship between PSD and QOL and activity of daily living performances were examined in a cross-sectional study on people with more than 6 months after stroke. Participants were those who attending the outpatient clinic of two rehabilitation centers in Tehran, Tabasom and Rofaideh. QOL, and QOL were assessed using the SF-36, the Beck's Depression Inventory (BDI) and Barthel Index, respectively. Results: A total of 40 participants, age of 61.5 years were interviewed at an average of 8.7 3.5 months post stroke. The prevalence of depression was 70.4%. These participants with depression had significantly lower quality of life. There was a significant negative correlation of PSD and QOL (r = -0.81).Furthermore, there was a significant negative correlation of PSD and ADL (r = -0.90). Conclusion: A significant proportion of stroke patients attending the rehabilitation clinics have depression and experienced problems in ADL that affects their QOL, adversely. So, considering remediation of depression and rehabilitation in ADL may effectively increase their quality of life in the stroke survivores.