Post stroke depression and risk of stroke recurrence and mortality: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Post stroke depression is a significant neuropsychiatric manifestation, predicting a range of poor outcomes. There are several studies investigating the association between post stroke depression and stroke recurrence/mortality, but results have been inconsistent.

A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta regression of observational studies assessing the association between post stroke depression and risk of stroke recurrence and mortality.

A search of Medline (via PubMed), Web of Science databases, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was conducted until August 2018. We extracted and pooled hazard ratios from observational studies that reported the risk estimates of stroke recurrence and mortality in stroke survivors with/without depression.

The reviewed sample comprised 15 prospective cohort studies with 250,294 participants, 139,276 cases, and follow-up periods ranging from 1 to 15 years. The meta-analysis concluded a hazard ratio for post stroke depression and all-cause mortality of 1.59 (95% CI, 1.30-1.96), but research to date has been insufficient to determine the association between post stroke depression and stroke recurrence.

Post stroke depression is associated with a significantly increased risk of mortality in stroke survivors. More researches are required on the association with stroke recurrence.