Article type: Original Article
Article title: Stroke literacy in a south brazilian city: a communitybased survey
Journal: Journal of Stroke and
Cerebrovascular Diseases
Year: 2018
Authors:
Jamir Pitton Rissardo, Ana LetÃcia Fornari Caprara, Ana Lucia Cervi Prado
E-mail:
jamirrissardo@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Background: This community-based and cross-sectional
study was performed in a Brazilian city and aimed to evaluate stroke literacy.
Methods: A stroke knowledge survey was administered to passersby of a public
square from December 2015 to October 2016, in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul.
Convenience sampling was performed. Results: A total of 633 respondents
completed the survey. Of the respondents, 33% knew the meaning of “AVC”; 29.5%
incorrectly localized stroke in the heart. Any warning sign of stroke
(open-ended question) could not be remembered by 50.7% of the respondents;
individuals with a higher level of schooling (>7 years of education) and
those who localized stroke in the brain were more likely to call an emergency
in the case of a stroke (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 1.040, 95% confidence
interval [CI] 1.004-1.078 for years of schooling; adjusted OR 1.542, 95% CI
1.102-2.156 for replying “yes” to brain as the organ affected in stroke). Conclusions:
Brazilian public knowledge about stroke is still scarce, even in a population with
levels of formal education above the national average or in a city where the annual
promotion of Stroke Awareness Campaigns have taken place for almost a decade.
Thus, it might be necessary to design different informative strategies targeted
to our study’s population to improve stroke campaigns in Brazil. In Brazil,
increasing awareness of stroke focused on stroke prevention and recognition of
its warning signs should be a national priority in public health as the access
to stroke treatment remains limited.
Key-words: Stroke literacy, risk factors, warning signs, awareness
Full text available at:
DOI
10.1016/j.jstrokecerebrovasdis.2018.05.006
Citation
Rissardo
JP, Caprara AL, Prado AL. Stroke literacy in a south brazilian city: a communitybased survey. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis 2018;27:2513-18
Figure 1. Percentage of respondents who have recognized correct stroke warning signs (WS) or who have recognized, in addition to correct, also incorrect stroke WS.
Table 1. Baseline characteristics of the participants.
Table 2. Responses to questions about stroke WS, corresponding to the third (open-ended question) and fourth (close-ended questions) parts of the questionnaire.
Table 3. Multivariate binary logistic regression analysis.