Female stroke survivors' quality of life investigated

Conclusion The study suggests that women have a lower quality of life than men three and 12 months after they have been discharged from hospital after experiencing a stroke or mini-stroke. While the results were statistically significant, the relative differences appeared small. For example at three months (where the largest difference was found) the average difference in quality of life score between men and women was 0.036 points. This is on a quality of life scale that ranges from 0 (death) to 1 (perfect health). The quality of life difference at 12 months was 0.022 points. Whether these small differences are clinically important, or whether they would be perceived as important to recovering stoke patients needs consideration. This study had a lot of missing data and this may have biased the findings and will have made them less representative of the general population of people recovering from stroke. Furthermore, the link between gender and post stroke quality of life was heavily influenced by age, race and marital status (confounders). This raises the possibility that other confounders are still accounting for some or all of the proposed gender-quality of life link. While efforts were made to account for many confounders in the analysis, this may not have been comprehensive. This study weakness is common and is known as “residual confounding”. Finally, the study involved US residents who may experience different treatment and post treatment care than English resid...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Neurology Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news