Chronic Pain and Its Impact on Health-Related Quality of Life among Stroke Survivors in TASH
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Date
2025-02-19
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Globally, more than 100 million individuals have survived a stroke, making it one
of the leading causes of disabilities. The survivors may face various post-stroke sequelae such as
depression, language abnormalities, and debilitating chronic pain. Some previous studies
conducted else including Ethiopia, have shown that post-stroke survivors have a lower quality of
life compared to the general population. Although little information is available in this regard, its
contributory impact on HRQoL is unknown and therefore we examined the impact of chronic
pain on health-related quality of life among stroke survivors for some improved programmatic
initiatives contextually.
Objective: This study aimed to determine the magnitude of chronic pain in stroke survivor
patients and its impact on their health-related quality of life among patients attending the Stroke
clinic, at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital (TASH)
Methodology: An institution-based cross-sectional study was used to assess post-stroke patients
who visited TASH from September 20 to December 20, 2024. All eligible patients aged above
18 years, able to communicate, and at least three months post-stroke were included. A validated
tool; the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) screening tool and the short version of the Stroke Specific
Quality of Life Scale (SS-QoL), were administered through face-to-face structured interviews.
Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used and p-value <0.05 was considered
significant.
Result: A total of 132 stroke survivors were involved. The mean age of the respondents was
56.93 years, ranging from 18 to 87 years. Males account higher proportion 57.6% (76). Ischemic
stroke is the most common type of stroke account 69.7% (92). Pain was reported by 22.7% (30)
of the patients (95% CI: 15.9%-30.8%), with Central Post-Stroke Pain (CPSP) being the most
common type. The pain was significantly associated with a decrease in HRQoL, affecting both
physical domain (p < 0.00) and psychosocial domain (P < 0.001). Other factors negatively
affecting physical domain are such as occupation (unemployed (p=0.023), retired (p=<0.001)
Housewife/housekeeping (p=0.006) and education (illiterate (p= 0.026)). Psychosocial domain is
negatively affected by occupation (unemployed (p=0.017).
Conclusion: Chronic pain is a prevalent and debilitating complication among stroke survivors,
significantly reducing HRQoL. Effective pain management strategies are essential to improve the
quality of life in this population.
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Keywords
Chronic pain, Stroke survivors, Central post-stroke Pain, Health-Related Quality of life.