Quality of life among patients during subacute phase following stroke during hospitalisation period in Shanghai

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the factors influencing the quality of life of in-hospital subacute stroke patients.

Methods: The patients of subacute stroke (within four weeks) in our institution between 2015 and 2016 were recruited. Patients’ characteristics and QOL were obtained from medical charts and stroke-specific quality of life scale (SS-QOL). Associations of each domain in SS-QOL with socio-demographic, clinical factors and patient satisfaction were investigated using the linear regression models.

Results: Among the 203 subjects, 60 were diagnosed as large artery atherosclerosis (LAA), 80 were small-artery occlusion (SAO), 28 were cardioembolism (CE) and 35 were intracranial haemorrhage (ICH). The ICH group had the worst self-care ability and upper extremity function. Worse severity of stroke was associated with lower levels of language ability, mobility, mood status and upper-extremity function. Participants who had better satisfaction had high levels of capability of conducting family roles, positive emotions, personality consistency, self-care ability and capacity of conducting social roles.

Conclusions: The level of patient satisfaction, duration of hospitalisation and the severity of stroke were found to be the three important factors associated with SS-QOL at hospital discharge, indicating doctors might assist patients adjust to the consequences of stroke and improve the QOL of subacute stroke.

Keywords:

• Subacute stroke
• stroke-specific QOL
• hospitalisation
• patient satisfaction

Key Points

• Compare to the stroke patients who diagnosed as large-artery atherosclerosis, small-artery occlusion (SAO) and cardiogenic embolism (CE), the patients suffered intracerebral haemorrhage had worse self-care ability and upper extremity function at hospital charge during subacute phase.

• The level of patient satisfaction, duration of hospitalisation and the severity of stroke were found to be the three important factors associated with SS-QOL during hospitalisation.

• No significant relationship was found between the white matter hyperintensities and any QOL domains.

Acknowledgements

None.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.