Factors influencing pre-stroke and post-stroke quality of life among stroke survivors in a lower middle-income country

This study was done to describe pre- and post-stroke QOLs of stroke survivors. A prospective longitudinal study was done among stroke survivors admitted to 13 hospitals in the western province of Sri Lanka. The calculated sample size was 260. T he pre-stroke and post-discharge one-month QOL was gathered using short form-36 (SF-36) QOL tool. SF-36 includes questions on eight domains: general health, physical functioning, pain, role limitation due to physical problems, social functioning, vitality, role limitations due to emotional problems, and mental health. Univariate analysis was followed by determining the independent risk factors through multivariate analysis. The response rate was 81%. The disability was measured by the modified Rankin scale which ranges from 0 (no symptoms) to 6 (fatal outcome). The median (IQR) disability scor e was 4 (3 to 5). The post-discharge QOL scores were significantly lower than pre-stroke values (p <  0.05). With a higher pre-stroke QOL, younger age was significantly associated in six domains and higher income and better health infrastructure in two domains (p <  0.05). Six factors were determined to be independent risk factors for lower post-discharge QOL scores of SF-36: younger age (for general health and role limitation-physical domains), female gender (for physical functioning and pain domains), lower health infrastructure (for general health, vitalit y, and mental health domains), lower education (for pain domain), higher disab...
Source: Neurological Sciences - Category: Neurology Source Type: research