Physical and mental health of stroke survivors and their daily activities

The aim of the study was to compare the quality of life between stroke survivors and controls with respect to their health, daily activities, and emotional status.
Contingent and methods of the study. The studied group consisted of 508 25–84-year-old inhabitants of Kaunas city who have survived first-onset stroke. The control group consisted of 508 age- and sex-matched randomly selected inhabitants of Kaunas city who had not experienced stroke. The SF-12 Quality of Life Questionnaire was used for the study. Logistic regression was used to compare quality of life with respect to health, daily activities, and emotional status.
Results. Only 1.0% of stroke survivors evaluated their health as excellent or very good, compared to 24.4% of the controls (P=0.0005); the respective percentages of those who evaluated their health as poor or fair were 78.9% and 26.4% (P=0.0005). Health significantly limited moderate activities in 35.2% of stroke survivors and 3.5% of controls (P=0.0005). During the last 4 weeks, health status or emotional problems most of the time or a little of the time impeded social activities in 19.3% of stroke survivors and 1.6% of controls (P<0.05). When comparing with respect to age, sex, and diseases (arterial hypertension, myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation, diabetes mellitus, transient ischemic attack), stroke had the greatest negative effect on social activities (odds ratio, 36.7), caused sadness (odds ratio, 16.0), and significantly limited home activities (odds ratio, 15.5).
Conclusions. Less that one-third (28.2%) of stroke survivors evaluated their health as poor, and 50.7% as fair as compared to 1.8% and 24.6% of controls, respectively. Stroke significantly impaired the subjects’ emotional status and limited their daily activities.