Visual Impairment after Stroke investigating Psychological difficulty

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Visual impairment after Stroke investigating the prevalence of Psychological difficulties (VISP)

• IRAS ID

  332384

• Contact name

  Lauren Hepworth

• Contact email

  Lauren.Hepworth@liverpool.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Liverpool

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 10 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  An estimated 100,000 people in the UK suffer a stroke each year and there are approximately 1.3 million stroke survivors in the UK. Approximately three quarters of stroke survivors have some degree of visual impairment.

  Psychological difficulties, such as anxiety and depression, are reportedly common after stroke, and often co-occur with visual impairment. While both stroke and visual problems are linked to mental health issues individually, it is unclear if both together would make psychological problems more common. To date there is a lack of studies on psychological difficulties among stroke-survivors with visual impairment. There are two research studies that interviewed stroke survivors to discuss these difficulties but no studies that have measured how common this problem is. This research aims to fill this gap. The purpose of this research is to investigate psychological difficulties in stroke-survivors with visual impairment specifically depression and anxiety.
  The objectives are to:
  1. Find out how common psychological difficulties, specifically anxiety and depression, are for stroke-survivors with visual impairment
  2. Find out the relationship between vision-related quality of life, resilience and mood problems
  3. Test whether the new vision-related quality of life scale created for stroke survivors with visual impairment is sensitive enough to highlight psychological difficulties

  Participants: We aim to ask 97 stroke-survivors with visual impairment who are under hospital care to take part in the study. They will be recruited by an NHS clinician.

  Design: Participants will be asked to complete three questionnaires at one time point either online or using paper copies (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Brain Injury Visual Impairment Impact Questionnaire and Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale). Demographic and clinical data about their stroke and visual impairment will be collected from their routine clinical assessments.

• REC name

  North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  23/NW/0362

• Date of REC Opinion

  2 Jan 2024

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion