A Study to Find Out Correlation of Depression with The Level of Disability in Stroke Patients

BACKGROUND: Stroke is a medical emergency, and can cause permanent neurological damage, complications, and even death. Depressive disorders and diminished functional capabilities have been recognized as common consequences of stroke More than one half of all stroke survivors are left with disabilities that prevent them from returning to their prestroke level of health and productivity. Poststroke depression is considered as the most frequent and important neuro-psychiatric consequence of stroke. As both depressive disorders and disability occurs after stroke, the purpose of the study is to correlate and find the relationship of depression with the level of disability in stroke patients. METHOD: A total of 100 stroke patients of both sexes in the age group of 30 to 60 years within a given time duration of 6 months after stroke were assessed for their depression and disability level. Depression was measured using Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) with scores ranging from 0 to 54 and Disability was measured using modified Rankin Scale (mRS) with scores ranging from 0 to 6. OUTCOME MEASURE: The following outcome measures were measured: 1. Depression was measured using Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) 2. Disability was measured using modified Rankin Scale (mRS) STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: • Karl Pearson’s correlation • P value <0.05 is taken up for statistical significance RESULTS: The r- value is 0.836, p- value is 0.000 and the result is highly significant with p<0.05 significance. In this study, r is between -1 and 1. Since it is a positive value (0.836), we can conclude that there exist a significant positive correlation between depression (HDRS) and level of disability (mRS) in stroke patients. CONCLUSION: Depression had a strong positive correlation with Disability in stroke patients Keywords: Stroke, Depression, Disability, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Modified Rankin Scale (mRS).