Are sustained high depressive symptom trajectories associated with an increased risk of incident stroke compared to decreasing trajectories?
Sustained high depressive symptoms over time are associated with increased stroke risk, whereas remitting symptoms do not carry the same risk, highlighting the importance of repeated psychological assessments.
Depressive symptom trajectories characterized by high symptoms at multiple timepoints were associated with increased stroke risk. However, a trajectory with depressive symptoms that started high but decreased over time was not associated with higher stroke risk. Given the remitting-relapsing nature of depressive symptoms, it is important to understand the relationship between depressive symptoms and stroke risk over time through repeated assessments.
Soh et al. (Mon,) studied this question.