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In this study, we examined the influence of clinical depression and personality introversion on 15-month mortality following stroke. Ninety-four stroke inpatients were examined two months post-stroke for clinical depression and pre-stroke personality characteristics of neuroticism and introversion. Fifteen months later, the vital status of 84 of these patients was able to be determined. Seven (8%) of the 84 patients died. Mortality rate increased from non-depressed to minor depressed and to major depressed patients (1/48 2%, 2/21 10% and 3/13 23%, respectively) (chi 2trend = 6.6, df = 1, p = 0.01). Patients who died had higher depression symptom scores (mean +/- SD) than survivors (17.7 +/- 6.0 versus 9.9 +/- 7.1) (p = 0.006). Non-survivors were more introverted (i.e. had lower extroversion scores) than survivors (1.7 +/- 1.4 versus 4.2 +2- 2.1) (p = 0.004). In multivariate analyses, introversion and depression were independently associated with mortality. We conclude that personality introversion and depression are associated with increased mortality following stroke.
Morris et al. (Wed,) studied this question.