BACKGROUND : Hwabyung is a culturally-related syndrome of Korea diagnostically confounded with somatization, depressive and generalized anxiety disorders, representing typical clinical manifestations of wide range in their severity. METHODS : This clinical study was carried out on 200 inward stroke patients who had stable vital signs and had stayed at least for 10 days after admission. The patients were devided into two groups, hwabyung and non hwabyung group after an interview with an oriental neuropychiatrist. Than we compared the two groups with general characteristics, past history, stroke type, clinical manifestations and serum lipid levels. Also we investigated recent stressors in hwabyung group. RESULTS : The results showed that the incidence of hwabyung was about 28.5% in stroke patients. The greater number of subjects with hwabyung were women in lower educational level. Aphagia were observed more frequently in hwabyung group and verbal disturbance in non-hwabyung group. The most recent stressor of male in hwabyung group was finantial difficulties due to dishonor, unemployment, cheated and so on. As to female, the conflicts with husband or his family were the most recent stressor. As a whole, finantial difficulties were highly ranked as a recent stress in hwabyung group.