"Quality of Life Halves When Stroke Is Accompanied by Depression"

Jasaeng Korean Medicine Hospital's Hanui Doctor Kang Seon-woo Research Team
Reveals Association Between Depression and Quality of Life in Stroke Patients

A study has found that when depression accompanies a stroke, the quality of life decreases by more than twice.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwanju] A study has found that stroke patients who suffer from depression have a quality of life that is more than twice as low. Recently, stroke has been identified as a major risk factor for depression, leading to active global research on the prevalence of depression among stroke patients.

The research team led by Hanui-sa Kang Seonwoo from Jaseng Hospital of Korean Medicine’s Spine and Joint Research Institute announced on the 12th that these findings were published in the June issue of the SCI(E)-level international journal ‘PLOS ONE.’

The research team selected 45,741 adults aged 40 and above with examination data from among 93,028 participants in the 4th to 7th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted from January 2008 to December 2018 as the study subjects. The overall prevalence of stroke among all participants was 3.2%.

They then measured the quality of life of stroke patients according to the presence of depression using the 'EQ-5D (EuroQol-5 Dimension),' a scale related to physical and mental quality of life. The EQ-5D comprehensively evaluates five detailed items: mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression, producing a score where a lower value indicates a lower quality of life.

The group with the lowest total EQ-5D score was the stroke group with depression. The total score for the stroke group without depression was -0.07 points, and for those with depression only, it was -0.05 points. In contrast, the stroke group with depression had a total score of -0.15, which was more than twice as low as the stroke-only group. Additionally, in all five detailed items, the stroke group with depression received the lowest evaluations.

Furthermore, an analysis conducted on severe patients showed that the EQ-5D total scores for the stroke treatment group and the depression treatment group were each -0.08, whereas the stroke treatment group with depression had a total score of -0.2, indicating the lowest quality of life. Among the detailed items, the odds ratio for anxiety and depression was the highest at 7.28. The odds ratio is used to verify the significance of the difference in the likelihood of a specific event occurring between groups. This means that the risk of anxiety and depression problems is higher compared to the general population.

Kang Sun-woo, Korean Medicine Doctor at Jaseng Korean Medicine Hospital.

Hanui-sa Kang Seonwoo explained, “As the number of stroke patients with depression has been steadily increasing recently, a multifaceted and integrated approach to these two conditions is important,” adding, “This study is significant in that it revealed a strong correlation between the quality of life of stroke patients and depression, and that it was conducted on a national population level, which enhances the reliability of the results.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.