Stroke-related Knowledge And Emergency Response: A Survey Study Of Hospitalized Patients With Stroke Risk Factors

ObjectiveStroke-related knowledge on risk factors, risk for stroke, preventionmeasures, warning signs and emergency response was investigated amongpatients hospitalized in the department of neurology with risk factors forstroke.MethodsBy face-to-face interviews, we investigated five hundred patients withstroke risk factors with self-designed questionnaire at the Department ofNeurology of Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.Patients were mainly asked to answer stroke-related knowledge andemergency responses to the stroke warning signs. The multivariate logisticregression was adopted to analyze the relevant factors.Results467patients completed the questionnaire.15.5%of them reportedmore than3correct risk factors,The most frequently mentioned risk factorswere hypertension (39.4%), Hyperlipidemic(17.1%), and diabetes(14.6%).10.7%of them reported more than3correct warning signs,The most frequently mentioned warning signs were one side or two of body weaknessor numbness (52.9%),dizziness,difficulty in walking,or lose ofbalance （32.3%）,and difficulty in speaking18.0%）.44.8%of patientsawared their own risk for stroke.55.2%of patients believed that strokecould be prevented. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis revealed thatthe awareness of their own risk for stroke independently associated witheducation, hyperlipidemia, heart disease, previous history of stroke.For thefive stroke warning signs， the ratio of calling120were46.3%~57.8%，and only28.8%respondents reported that they would call120for all5stroke warning signs.The ratio of calling120for all5stroke warning signsassociated with the knowledge of stroke warning signs (p=0.028),theawareness of stroke risk factors (p<0.001),and Household income(p=0.003).ConclusionsLack of awareness of stroke risk factors, risk of suffering and warningsymptoms was prevalent among patients at high risk of stroke hospitalizedin the Department of Neurology. It’s necessary to strengthen healtheducation to improve the awareness of stroke prevention and help to takethe right measures for acute stroke emergency treatment.