Associations between Life’s Essential 8 and post-stroke depression and all-cause mortality among US adults

Depression is the common mental disease after stroke. Our objective was to investigate the correlation of Life’s Essential 8 (LE8), the recently updated evaluation of cardiovascular health, with the occurrence of post-stroke depression (PSD) and all-cause mortality among United States (US) adults. Participants with stroke were chosen from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2005 and 2018. The relationship between LE8 and the risk of PSD was assessed through weighted multiple logistic models. A restricted cubic spline was employed for the examination of correlations. To demonstrate the stability of the results, sensitivity analysis and subgroup analysis were carried out. Furthermore, Cox regression models were used for the correlation between LE8 and all-cause mortality. In this study, a total of 1071 participants were included for analysis. It was observed that LE8 score and PSD risk shared an inverse relationship in per 10 points increase [OR = 0.62 (0.52–0.74, P < 0.001)] in logistic regression models. The analysis of restricted cubic spline demonstrated approximately a noticeable inverse linear association between LE8 score and PSD risk. Sensitivity analysis verified the stability of the findings. Moreover, no statistically significant interactions were identified in subgroup analysis. A reverse association between LE8 score and all-cause mortality was also observed with a 10-point increase [HR = 0.85 (0.78–0.94, P < 0.001)] in cox regression models. A negative correlation was discovered between LE8 score and PSD and all-cause mortality risk among US adults. We need to conduct large-scale prospective studies to further validate our results.