Stroke Awareness in Patients with Incident Stroke Compared to Patients without Stroke or Ischemic Heart Disease.

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 ( 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.