A preliminary study of stroke patients and attention: Exploring the role of spirituality and religiousness on cognition

INTRODUCTION: Spirituality and religiousness are not so far extensively investigated in patients after stroke. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this preliminary study is to explore whether self-reports in two questionnaires measuring the personal experience of spirituality and religiousness can influence cognition and more specifically performance on neuropsychological tests examining attention. METHODS: Fifteen male stroke patients participated voluntarily one year after their hospitalization. The mean age of the patients was 75.58 years (SD = 7.50, range 61-90), level of education 15.47 years (SD = 3.82). In addition to that, fifteen controls with similar demographics, free of physical and mental diseases, were also examined. Depressive symptoms of the participants were assessed with the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale. The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, the Systems of Belief Inventory (SBI-15R) and a number of standardized tests examining attention were administered: Trail Making Test-Part A (TMT-A) time to completion, the Digit Span (WAIS-III) greatest forward span, the Ruff 2 & 7 Selective Attention Test automatic detection speed (ADS) and controlled search speed (CSS). RESULTS: indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the control group and the stroke group in attention. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups regarding the levels of spirituality and religiousness. CONCLUSIONS: Although spirituality and religiousness may be related with quality of life, cognitive functioning such as attention does not seem to be influenced by these variables one year post-stroke. Future research should further investigate the possible influence of the abovementioned factors in post-stroke recovery and rehabilitation.