Abstract

Background

After a stroke, families require the coordinated assistance of health and social care. Currently there is a lack of comprehensive evaluation and assessment tools to identify discharge needs, and there is separate management of health and social resources, and access to these services is variable between regions.

Objective

The main objective of this study was to assess the factors associated with risk of dependency after stroke and propose a suitable instrument for identifying patients at higher risk.

Methods

This was a 2-year prospective and community study of a stroke cohort. The primary outcome was recognized dependency. The potential predictors were considered in a multivariate regression and area under curve (AUC) to evaluate its discriminative capacity.

Results

Overall, 233 stroke survivors were recruited, 49.8% of whom were women, and the average age was 78.1 ± 11.6 years. The total rate of dependency was 31.5 (95% confidence interval [CI] 26.1-37.7) cases/100 person-years. The independent factors associated with dependency outcome were age >80 years (hazard ratio [HR] 2.03, 95% CI 1.32-3.12, P = .001), Pfeiffer score ≥4 (HR 1.82, 95% CI 1.25-1.2.66, P = .002), Barthel score .001).

Conclusions

Stroke has serious effects on the dependency outcomes. The patient’s age, cognitive or physical impairment, and comorbidities as measured on the Pfeiffer score, Barthel Index, and Charlson score identified people at high risk and may ease the integrated role of social and health services.