Health Care Use and Its Associated Factors 5-8 Years after Stroke.

Objectives: To describe health care use and its associated factors in the chronic phase after stroke.

Methods: Patients completed a questionnaire on health care use, 5-8 years after hospital admission for stroke. It comprised the number of visits to physicians or other health care professionals over the past 6 months (Physician-visits; Low ≤1 or High ≥2) and other health care professionals (Low = 0 or High ≥ 1). In addition the Longer-term Unmet Needs after Stroke (LUNS), Frenchay Activity Index (FAI) and Physical and Mental Component Summary Scales of the Short Form 12 (PCS and MCS) were administered. Their associations with health care use (high, low) were determined by means of logistic regression analysis, adjusted for sex and age.

Results: Seventy-eight of 145 patients (54%) returned the questionnaires; mean time-since-stroke was 80.3 months (SD10.2), age-at-stroke 61.7 years (SD13.8), and 46 (59%) were male. Physician contacts concerned mainly the general practitioner (58; 79.5%). Forty-one (52.6%) and 37 (47.4%) of the patients had a high use of physician and other health professionals visits, respectively. Worse PCS scores were associated with both high use of physician and other health professionals visits (OR .931; 95%CI .877-.987 and OR .941; 95%CI .891-.993, respectively), whereas the FAI, MCS, or LUNS were not related to health care use.

Conclusions: Health care use after stroke is substantial and is related to physical aspects of health status, not to mental aspects, activities or unmet needs, suggesting a mismatch between patients' needs and care delivered.