Kontakt 2021, 23(3):157-161 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2020.036

Quality of life in post-stroke patientsNursing - Original article

Lucia Dimunová^{1, *}, Mária Sováriová Soósová¹, Kinga Kardosová², Martin Červený³, Mária Belovičová⁴

¹ Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Nursing Care, Slovak Republic

² Hospital with Out-patient Clinic of St. Barbora Rožňava, a. s, Neurological Department, Rožňava, Slovak Republic

³ University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Institute of Nursing, Midwifery and Emergency Care, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

⁴ St. Elizabeth University of Health and Social Sciences Bratislava, n. o., Internal Outpatient Clinic Focusing on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Liver Diseases, Remedium, s.r.o., Bardejovské Kúpele, Slovak Republic

Introduction: Strokes are the third most common cause of hospitalization in Slovakia. This is a serious social and economic problem, because after a stroke almost half of the patients have a persistent neurological deficit. The goal of this research was to assess the quality of life of patients who have had an acute stroke.

Design: Quantitative cross-sectional study.

Methods: The Stroke Impact Scale (SIS 3.0) was completed by 80 patients, an average age of 69.9 (± 9.49) years within 28 days after a stroke. The results were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation.

Results: The average score for each SIS 3.0 domain ranged from 48.28 (social participation) to 75.18 (communication). The overall recovery rate was estimated at an average of 54.10 (± 29.19) points. There were no significant differences in the SIS domains by gender, and a worse score in the memory and thinking domain was only identified in women (p ≤ 0.05). Older age significantly correlated with most domains (p ≤ 0.05). The association between overall recovery rate and all SIS domains (p ≤ 0.05), except the emotion domain, was confirmed.

Conclusions: Assessing the consequences of strokes is important for the effective management of healthcare, psychological and social care, respecting the individual needs of the patient.

Keywords: Gender; Quality of life; Stroke; Stroke impact scale

Conflicts of interest:

The authors have no conflict of interests to declare.

Received: May 17, 2020; Revised: August 11, 2020; Accepted: September 23, 2020; Prepublished online: October 9, 2020; Published: September 3, 2021  Show citation