Post-stroke depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms and their associated factors: A cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Individuals post-stroke are subject to increased levels of mental health symptoms. This is a cross-sectional study explored levels of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms and identified their predictors among Jordanian individuals with stroke. Outcome measures included Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, Fugl-Meyer assessment, goniometry, hand-held dynamometry, nine-hole peg test, Ashworth scale, Motor Activity Log, ten-meter walk test, and 12-item Short-Form health survey (SF-12). Descriptive analyses were used to describe prevalence of mental health symptoms and multiple variable linear regression models were used to identify their predictors. A total of 153 individuals participated in the study. Proportions of participants with mental health symptoms were 74.5% for depression, 52.9% for anxiety, and 68% for stress. Significant predictors of post-stroke mental health symptoms were SF-12 Mental Composite Score and grip strength for depression, anxiety, and stress. Depression and stress symptoms were significantly associated with discontinuation of rehabilitation services. Furthermore, self-reports of fewer sleep hours was significantly associated with anxiety and stress. Finally, Gender and self-reported physical diseases other than stroke were significantly associated with depression symptoms. We conclude that high proportions of Jordanian individuals’ post-stroke have suffered mental health symptoms. Future studies are required to design effective interventions to improve post-stroke mental health.

KEYWORDS:

• Stroke
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Rehabilitation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

This project data are available upon reasonable requests from the corresponding author.

Ethical Approval

All Study procedures were approved by the institutional review board (IRB) at JUST (approval number 7/118/2018).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Jordan University of Science and Technology (Grant number 445/2018). This manuscript is the academic outcome of a master student who attended a programme-funded project by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union entitled (Project No: “573758-EPP-1-2016-1 JOEPPKA2-CBHE-JP”).