Effects of cognitive behavioural therapy on post stroke depression patients: a case of the University Teaching Hospital,Lusaka

Abstract

Post-stroke depression is one of the most serious neuropsychological consequences of stroke and it affects about 35-70 % of patients with stroke. However, Pharmacological treatment administered to post stroke depressed (PSD) patients, without an accompanying therapy, appears not be sustainable enough in treating depression, and this may continue threatening the lives of patients. The purpose of the study was to assess whether administering CBT to PSD patients would improve their depression levels. The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) on post-stroke depressed patients; specifically, the study sought to establish whether there was a statistically significant difference in overall depression scores between patients on CBT and those on non-CBT. A randomised controlled trial was adopted for the study. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select the participants. First, Purposive sampling was used to select 60 patients with post-stroke depression. Then simple random sampling was used to assign equal number of participants to the treatment group and control group. Data was collected through the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score sheet ( ) with eight weeks treatment. Patients in the experimental group were put on CBT whilst those in the control group continued receiving the norm treatment (pharmacotherapy). Data was analysed through Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and Multiple Linear Regression analysis. A 2×2 MANOVA indicated a statistically significant difference in means depression scores between patients on CBT treatment and those on non-CBT. Patients on CBT had lower mean depression score than those on non-CBT. The first general regression was not statistically significant in both the CBT and the non-CBT data sets. The second general regression model was statistically significant in both data sets, with 21 variables altogether explaining about 99.7% and 99.5% of the respective depression variances. However, CBT had influence on more depressive symptoms than had non-CBT treatment. The study established that there was a statistically significant difference in the overall depression scores between patients on CBT and those on non-CBT. Therefore, CBT was effective in treating post-stroke depression, and the study recommended it as an additional treatment therapy to the traditional pharmacological treatment.