MedWire News: After suffering a stroke, women are more likely than men to stick with their recommended stroke-prevention programmes, despite being more likely to suffer from depression, study results show.

The findings indicate that greater efforts are needed to encourage men to stick with their recommended stroke-prevention programmes after hospital discharge.

Dr Cheryl Bushnell, from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and colleagues studied 491 patients who received hospital treatment for strokes.

Before hospital discharge, all the patients were prescribed a course of drugs aimed at preventing a second stroke by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and preventing blood clots.

Three months later, all the participants were interviewed to see whether they were still taking their recommended medication. The researchers also assessed the patients' levels of depression and quality of life at this time.

The team found that 20% of women reported feelings of depression compared with just 8% of men. Furthermore, 30% of women reported sleep problems compared with just 18% of men.

Despite this, significantly more women than men were still taking their stroke-prevention medications at the time of the interview.

However, men who continued to take their stroke medications reported a better quality of life than women who continued to take their recommended drugs.

"This study was consistent with others that have shown that women are more likely to keep taking their medications than men, even though they may be more likely to be depressed and have poorer quality of life," said Dr Bushnell.

She added: "It may be that depression and quality of life do not impact women's motivation to take their medications. Men, on the other hand, who are more depressed and report poorer quality of life are less likely to adhere to their medication schedules."

The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology ion Chicago, Illinois, USA.