Abstract
Background: Stroke awareness is known to influence treatment seeking and risk reduction behavior,
but there is limited data from Sri Lanka and South Asia. Aim: To describe stroke awareness in incident stroke patients and to compare with patients
without stroke and/or ischemic heart disease (IHD) in a Sri Lankan tertiary-care center.
Methods: We studied awareness of stroke in all incident stroke patients admitted to a tertiary-care
center in Sri Lanka and compared with a group of age- and sex-matched patients without
stroke and/or IHD, over 2 years. Knowledge on stroke mechanisms, risk factors, symptoms,
prognosis, treatment, and prevention were evaluated using a 40-item interviewer-administered
questionnaire and converted to a composite score of 100%. Total awareness was categorized
as Very poor (<24%), Poor (25%-49%), Good (50%-74%), and Very good (>74%). Results: One hundred and sixty four incident stroke patients (mean age 62.0 ± 11.5 years;
64.6% males) and 164 patients without stroke and/or IHD were studied. Mean stroke
awareness was 47.79% ± 14.6 in stroke patients, and 47.73% ± 14.9 in the nonstroke
and/or IHD patients (P = .95). Of the associations studied, better stroke awareness (>50%) was associated
only with higher education levels (OR 1.90, 95%CI 1.33-2.72, P < .001) in stroke patients. Conclusions: Stroke awareness is not satisfactory in incident stroke patients and is no better
than in patients without stroke and/or IHD. Better stroke awareness was associated
with higher education levels.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 10, 2020
Accepted:
February 24,
2020
Received in revised form:
February 21,
2020
Received:
November 27,
2019
Footnotes
Funding: None.
Department and institution where work was performed.
Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.
Professorial Medical Unit, North Colombo Teaching hospital, Ragama, Sri Lanka.
Identification
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2020.104790
Copyright
© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
