**5. Conclusions**

Depression can act as a mediator variable for a higher disability level and mortality in patients more vulnerable to brain injury, independently of other neuropsychiatric mental health problems.

A high prevalence of depression after stroke should stress the need for future research exploring its possible pathomechanism and testing, if an early management of depression may change life expectancy after stroke and improve the outcome, even if functional deficits remain.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, K.K. and A.K.-M.; methodology, K.K., P.P. and A.K.-M.; validation, K.K., Ł.K., J.D., A.W. and A.K.-M.; formal analysis, K.K., Ł.K. and A.W.; investigation, K.K. and P.P.; writing—original draft preparation, K.K. and A.K.-M.; writing—review and editing, J.D., Ł.K., A.W., P.P. and A.K.-M.; supervision A.K.-M.; project administration, A.K.-M.; funding acquisition, A.K.-M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** Faculty of Medicine of Jagiellonian University Medical College (Leading National Research Centre 2012–2017) funded the collection of data for the study. Grant number KNOW-9000474.

**Acknowledgments:** We thank Małgorzata Mazurek for manuscript editing, and El ˙zbieta Klimiec for data collection.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
