Mediating effect of self-control in relation to depression, stress, and activities of daily living in community residents with stroke

[Purpose] This study aimed to determine whether self-control mediates the relation between depression, stress, and activities of daily living in community residents with stroke. [Subjects and Methods] This study is a secondary analysis of data from 108 community-dwelling stroke patients in Korea. Data were collected through self-reporting questionnaires, including the Korean version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, Korean version of the Brief Encounter Psychosocial Instrument, and the modified Barthel index. The path model was tested to investigate causal relations between variables, obtain maximum-likelihood estimates of model parameters, and provide goodness-of-fit indices. [Results] The proposed path model showed good fit to the data. Depression and stress have a significant direct effect on self-control and a significant indirect effect on activities of daily living through self-control. Depression and stress accounted for 28.0% of the variance in self-control. Depression, stress, and self-control accounted for 8.4% of the variance in explaining activities of daily living. [Conclusion] The level of self-control is an important indicator of activities of daily living in stroke patients. We suggest that interventions such as enhancement of confidence in one’s self-control ability could be effective in improving the physical activity of stroke patients with depressive mood and stress.