Evaluation of post-traumatic stress disorder in ischemic stroke patients

Aims: PTSD is most commonly seen in cases such as actual death or threat of death, a severe injury, or experiencing a threat to the physical integrity of oneself or others. Stroke was defined to be related to PTSD as well. For this purpose, we aimed to evaluate acute and chronic PTSD after stroke with this test in our hospital, which is also a stroke center and has many different stroke patient profiles. Methods: 25 patients hospitalized for stroke in the neurology clinics of our hospital and 25 patients in outpatient follow-up were included in the study. Inpatients were in the first 1-month period after stroke. These patients were accepted as acute PTSD. Patients who took the test from the outpatient clinic were in the follow-up period of at least 6 months after stroke. Results: Patients were included in the study as 1-month post-stroke group and 6 months or more post-stroke group. In Group 1, the test score was significantly higher (p<0.001). No significant difference was found in the comparison of these parameters. Conclusion: In our study, a significant difference was found especially in terms of acute and chronic PTSD. The scores in the acute PTSD group were significantly higher than the chronic PTSD group (p<0.001). This suggests that this effect of stroke, especially in the acute period, may affect the course of treatment of the disease. However, multicentre studies including randomized controlled and long-term follow-up are needed.