BACKGROUND: Physical disability is a cause of depression among acute stroke patients. Although previous studies have shown that physical disability, perceived social support, mental resilience, and post-stroke depression are significantly related, the interaction mechanism remains unclear.
METHODS: Convenience sampling was used to recruit participants from a tertiary hospital in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, China from October 2020 to May 2021. Participants completed the Barthel Index Rating Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale and Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. We used the PROCESS macro for SPSS to determine the mediating effect of perceived social support and resilience between disability and depression.
RESULT: A total of 259 acute stroke patients participated in this study and completed the questionnaire survey. Stroke patients' BI scores was positively correlated with perceived social support (r = 0.26, P < 0.01) and resilience (r = 0.25, P < 0.01), and negatively correlated with depression (r = -0.47, P < 0.01). Perceived social support was positively correlated with resilience (r = 0.55, P < 0.01) and negatively correlated with depression (r = -0.41, P < 0.01). Resilience was negatively correlated with depression (r = -0.43, P < 0.01). Perceived social support and resilience played a mediating role of 10.27% and 5.74% of the total effects of disability and post-stroke depression, respectively. Meanwhile, the chain mediating effect of perceived social support and resilience (7%) was also significant.
LIMITATIONS: The cross-sectional study design limited the inference of causal relationships between variables. This study used convenience sampling to select research participants from a single hospital, they were all acute stroke patients from the same region of China. Participants in our study were in high BI status, and thirty of them had a low level of education, which may contribute to the possibility of selection bias. Meanwhile, the low level of education and the poor eye-sight of old people prevents them from completing the questionnaire by themselves. So we collected data in the form of "researcher reading questionnaire items and recording participant responses" for the majority of participants (257 subjects), and only 2 participants completed it independently. Furthermore, the findings of this study may not apply to stroke survivors from other backgrounds.
CONCLUSION: This study found that disability can directly predict post-stroke depression, and indirectly predict post-stroke depression through the mediating effect of perceived social support and resilience, and the chain mediating effect of perceived social support-resilience. Therefore, reducing the degree of disability of acute stroke patients and improving their perceived social support and resilience may help prevent post-stroke depression.
