Background: Following a stroke, individuals often experience substantial difficulties, including speech and language problems, mobility,
cognitive and emotional problems. Clinical guidelines for stroke care highlight the importance of assessing and monitoring mood and cognitive
functioning of stroke survivors ,in order to support the individual and guide multidisciplinary teams in holistic rehabilitation. This paper presents
how psychological wellbeing assessments combine mood and cognitive screening and inform nursing and rehabilitation activities.
Aim: Psychological wellbeing assessments were evaluated in view of their suitability for meeting the professional and stroke standards for
mood and cognitive assessments. It was aimed to present how such assessments inform nursing care, individual rehabilitation programmes
and discharge arrangements.
Methods: A total of 83 patients were assessed with mood and cognitive screening procedures. As many as 75 patients had a diagnosis of
ischaemic stroke and eight patients experienced an intracerebral haemorrhage. All patients were assessed on an inpatient stroke rehabilitation
unit. More than half of the patients (43) were male, while 40 were female. The average age was 71 years with a range from 23–96 years.
Results: Mood assessments were carried out with 76 patients. Among these, 14 patients presented borderline clinical mood symptoms and
six patients showed significant psychological disturbances. More than three-quarters of patients (65) completed cognitive assessments.
Outcomes informed the clinical team about their baseline functions, capacity issues and the data contributed to specific cognitive skills
training and functional occupational therapy programmes.
Conclusions: Psychological wellbeing assessments offer opportunities for nursing and multidisciplinary teams to cover a range of mood and
cognitive issues. Combined mood and cognitive screenings are practical and effective procedures helping to meet service standards
and requirements.
Key Words Psychological wellbeing, cognitive functioning, psychological screening assessments, stroke rehabilitation, evaluation of psychological pathways