Objective To identify the latent profile characteristics of learned helplessness among patients with cerebral infarction and to explore the factors influencing the differences among these profiles.

Methods The study enrolled patients with cerebral infarction hospitalized from November 2024 to May 2025. Data were collected using a General Information Questionnaire, the Learned Helplessness Scale (LHS), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Barthel Index (BI), and the Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS). A latent profile model was employed to identify distinct lantent profiles of learned helplessness, while univariate analysis and multivariate Logistic regression were performed to examine the influencing factors of these latent profiles.

Results The mean score of learned helplessness among the 208 patients was (58.52 ± 8.43). Three latent profiles were identified: the "Low Helplessness and Low Hopelessness" group (45.2%), the "High Helplessness and Low Hopelessness" group (23.1%), and the "High Helplessness and High Hopelessness" group (31.7%). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis revealed that age, gender, years of education, current marital status, type of medical insurance, and scores of BI, CD-RISC, MoCA, and PSSS were influencing factors distinguishing the latent profiles (P ＜ 0.05).

Conclusions Patients with cerebral infarction demonstrate significant heterogeneity in learned helplessness, highlighting the need for healthcare professionals to identify high-risk subgroups and develop systematic intervention strategies based on their distinct categorical characteristics.