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Stroke symptoms and the decision to call for an ambulance: turn on people's minds!
No full textWe read with great interest the article by Mosley et al1 on
factors related to calling an ambulance for stroke patients. The
authors reported that “stroke” was referred as the problem
(unprompted) by 50% of callers, whereas fewer than half of the
calls were made within 1 hour from symptom onset. We agree
with the authors on the necessity of interventions to more strongly
link stroke recognition to immediate action to increase the
number of stroke patients eligible for acute treatment.
With the aim of evaluating the impact of a community intervention
on stroke perception among people, we have administered a
structured questionnaire to all participants in 2 distinct stroke
initiatives, in which people were given a free screening for
cerebrovascular risk assessment.
These initiatives, which included clinical and instrumental
(carotid and vertebral ultrasound scanning) examinations, took
place in Pisa in May and September 2006, and were potentially
addressed to all inhabitants of the city (85 000 people). Before
the screening, all participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire
composed of multi-option questions about stroke definition,
incidence, symptoms, consequences, and behavior in case of
stroke. In the months between the 2 initiatives, a widespread
stroke information campaign (specific posters, leaflets an booklets
dispensed in drugstores and in offices of General Practitioners,
in addition to those given at the end of the screening during
the first stoke initiative in May 2006; articles published in local
newspapers; announcements and Neurologist interviews shown
by local television) was implemented. The characteristics of the participants to these 2 initiatives
(before and after stroke information campaign) and the answers
given to the questionnaires are shown in the Table. Despite the
older age and a comparable educational level, the participants in
the second stroke initiative showed an overall better knowledge
about stroke than the participants to the previous one.
Our data show that information campaigns addressed to the
community represent a powerful tool to enhance people knowledge
about stroke. In particular, in accordance with a previous
study,2 we think that providing continuous, full, and at the same
time concise information about stroke (explaining all the items of
our questionnaire, for instance) is an educationally correct
method to link stroke recognition to rapid call for ambulance and
acute treatment implementation
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