Cardiovascular disease and Stroke are a leading cause of death worldwide, and while many people survive a stroke, they are not only left with physical disability or cognitive impairment, but also psychological distress, anxiety, and depression. While stroke is typically considered a medical emergency that happens later in life, in reality stroke can affect anyone at any time, with certain individuals predisposed to cardiovascular events. Some psychological therapies required significant cognitive function i.e., the ability to pause and reflect on a problem, to consider it outside of one’s own experience, and to engage in meta-cognitive processes i.e., thinking about thoughts. For individuals post-stroke, these meta-cognitive skills may be affected, and so the purpose of this project is to complete a very brief cognitive screener with post-stroke participants who are to avail of a 4-session Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) group, in the community. We hypothesise that people with higher cognitive impairment, or lower cognitive status, will have reduced psychological flexibility and meta-cognitive skills at the start of the intervention, and that this will relate to their experience and outcome post-intervention. The purpose of this project is to complete the cognitive screening with participants. This work has the potential for lead to the development of a second 4-session ACT group, with focuses less on meta-cognitive constructs, whereby in the future potential participants could complete the cognitive screen, and consequently be assigned to the group which the evidence would suggest they will benefit most from. The objective of this HRB summer student project, is to assess the pre-clinical proof of concept stage of cognitive screening for this group, in line with our charity partner Croi. We have completed PPI engagements which report high tolerability for the outcome measure, and this project will determine whether larger groups of patients engage with the screener.
