"Hesitating and Puzzling": The Experiences and Decision Process of Acute Ischemic Stroke Patients with Prehospital Delay after the Onset of Symptoms.

Despite campaigns to increase public awareness of stroke symptoms by advocating FAST (Face-Arms-Speech-Time), some stroke patients still show delays in the recognition of and response to stroke symptoms and miss the golden first 4.5 h to receive rt-PA (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator) treatment. The aim of this study was to explore how acute ischemic stroke patients with prehospital delay seek help and undergo the decision process before arriving at the hospital.