section name header

Evidence summaries

Pharmaceutical Interventions for Emotionalism after Stroke

Antidepressants might possibly reduce emotionalism (lability, crying or laughing episodes) in stroke patients, although the evidence is insufficient. Level of evidence: "D"

A Cochrane review [Abstract] 1 included 5 RCTs with a total of 213 stroke patients. We included seven trials with a total of 239 participants. Two trials were of crossover design, and outcome data were not available from the first phase (precrossover) in an appropriate format for inclusion as a parallel randomised controlled trial (RCT). Thus, the results of the review are based on five trials with 213 participants. Treatment effects were observed on the following primary endpoints of emotionalism: There is very low quality of evidence from one small RCT that antidepressants increased the number of people who had 50% reduction in emotionalism (RR 16.50, 95% CI 1.07 to 253.40; 19 participants) and low quality evidence from one RCT of improved scores on Center for Neurologic Study Lability Scale (CNSLS) and Clinician InterviewBased Impression of Change (CIBIC) with antidepressants (RR 1.44, 95% CI 0.95 to 2.19; 28 participants). There was moderate quality evidence from three RCTS that they increased the number of people who had a reduction in tearfulness (RR 2.18, 95% CI 1.29 to 3.71; 164 participants); and low quality evidence from one RCT of improved scores on the Pathological Laughter and Crying Scale (PLCS) (MD 8.40, 95% CI 11.56 to 5.24; 28 participants).

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by study quality (unclear allocation concealment, inadequate follow up), inconsistency (heterogeneity in patients and evaluation methods) and indirectness (differences in studied patients).

    References

    • Allida S, Patel K, House A et al. Pharmaceutical interventions for emotionalism after stroke. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2019;3():CD003690. [PubMed]

Primary/Secondary Keywords