526 - Stroke survivor depressive symptoms and anger expression: A Literature review

Abstract

Background:

After stroke, patients may have to accept and face many changes and complications that affect their quality of life. Consequently, they may feel a variety of emotions such as fear, anxiety, denial, depression, anger, rage. Depression is the most common complication after stroke. Anger often occurs in the acute phase of stroke but also during the chronic phase of the patient’s recovery.

Objective:

To explore the relationship between depressive symptoms and anger expression among stroke survivors.

Method:

A literature review was conducted in PubMed and Scopus database.

Results:

Patients, who exhibited more depressive symptoms, seemed to control less their anger. Further research has shown the effectiveness of both pharmacological and other therapeutic interventions that have a simultaneous effect on both reducing anger expression and level of depression. The way individuals express their anger remain a crucial question. There are three main categories of anger expression. Individuals may anger-out when they tend to openly express anger, usually in negative and aggressive ways, or they anger-in when they experience but suppress the open expression of anger. Finally, individuals may control their anger. The main goal of an individual in this case is to reduce and eliminate these feelings, so the expression of anger could be more controlled.

Conclusions:

Given all the negative effects of post stroke depression and anger, as those emotional states are responsible for a wide range of health-related behaviors, it is important to incorporate the above concepts in both theoretical and practical fields of health sciences in order to reduce their impact and improve the quality of services provided in post stroke rehabilitation programs.