Psychosocial/Behavioral Intervention in Post-Stroke Depression (PSD)

This is the second phase of a study whose aim was to evaluate the short and long-term efficacy of a brief psychosocial/behavioral intervention (with adjunctive antidepressant)for the treatment of post-stroke depression (PSD) in survivors of ischemic stroke (registered as clinical trail NCT00194454). In the earlier trial we demonstrated that a pleasant event/problem-solving brief psychosocial-behavioral therapy delivered by psychosocial nurse practitioners was highly effective in treating major depression and promoting remission in ischemic stroke survivors for up to two years. In this phase, we refine the protocol, and potentially make it more cost effective, by conducting a randomized comparative effectiveness trial of in-person versus telephone delivery of the intervention, comparing with usual care control. We also seek to expand our sample to include hemorrhagic stroke survivors (intraparenchymal hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage) as well as those with ischemic stroke.