Dataset Information

Delay in seeking medical help following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) or "mini-stroke": a qualitative study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Prompt treatment following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) can reduce the risk of subsequent stroke and disability. However, many patients delay in making contact with medical services. This study aimed to explore TIA patients' accounts of delay between symptom onset and contacting medical services including how decisions to contact services were made and the factors discussed in relation to delay.

Methods

Twenty interviews were conducted with TIA patients in England. Using a previous systematic review as an initial framework, interview data were organised into categories of symptom recognition, presence of others and type of care sought. A thematic analysis was then conducted to explore descriptions of care-seeking relevant to each category.

Results

Delay in contacting medical services varied from less than an hour to eight days. Awareness of typical stroke symptoms could lead to urgent action when more severe TIA symptoms were present but could lead to delay when experienced symptoms were less severe. The role of friends and family varied widely from deciding on and enacting care-seeking decisions to simply providing transport to the GP practice. When family or friends played a greater role, and both made and enacted care-seeking decisions, delays were often shorter, even when patients themselves failed to identify symptoms. Healthcare professionals also impacted on patients' care-seeking with greater delays in seeking further care for the same episode described when patients perceived a lack of urgency during initial healthcare interactions.

Conclusions

This study provides new information on patients' decisions to contact medical services following TIA and identifies overlapping factors that can lead to delay in receiving appropriate treatment. While recognition of symptoms may contribute to delay in contacting medical services, additional factors, including full responsibility being taken by others and initial healthcare interactions, can over-ride or undermine the importance of patients' own identification of TIA.

SUBMITTER: Mc Sharry J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4138063 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Delay in seeking medical help following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) or "mini-stroke": a qualitative study.

Mc Sharry Jennifer J Baxter Alison A Wallace Louise M LM Kenton Anthony A Turner Andrew A French David P DP

PloS one 20140819 8

<h4>Background</h4>Prompt treatment following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) can reduce the risk of subsequent stroke and disability. However, many patients delay in making contact with medical services. This study aimed to explore TIA patients' accounts of delay between symptom onset and contacting medical services including how decisions to contact services were made and the factors discussed in relation to delay.<h4>Methods</h4>Twenty interviews were conducted with TIA patients in England. U ...[more]

PMID: 25137185

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Project description:Recent work has highlighted that people who have had TIA may have abnormal motor and cognitive function. We aimed to quantify deficits in a cohort of individuals who had TIA and measured changes in their abilities to perform behavioural tasks over 1 year of follow-up using the Kinarm Exoskeleton robot. We additionally considered performance and change over time in an active control cohort of migraineurs. Individuals who had TIA or migraine completed 8 behavioural tasks that assessed cognition as well as motor and sensory functionality in the arm. Participants in the TIA cohort were assessed at 2, 6, 12, and 52 weeks after symptom resolution. Migraineurs were assessed at 2 and 52 weeks after symptom resolution. We measured overall performance on each task using an aggregate metric called Task Score and quantified any significant change in performance including the potential influence of learning. We recruited 48 individuals to the TIA cohort and 28 individuals to the migraine cohort. Individuals in both groups displayed impairments on robotic tasks within 2 weeks of symptom cessation and also at approximately 1 year after symptom cessation, most commonly in tests of cognitive-motor integration. Up to 51.3% of people in the TIA cohort demonstrated an impairment on a given task within 2-weeks of symptom resolution, and up to 27.3% had an impairment after 1 year. In the migraine group, these numbers were 37.5% and 31.6%, respectively. We identified that up to 18% of participants in the TIA group, and up to 10% in the migraine group, displayed impairments that persisted for up to 1 year after symptom resolution. Finally, we determined that a subset of both cohorts (25-30%) experienced statistically significant deteriorations in performance after 1 year. People who have experienced transient neurological symptoms, such as those that arise from TIA or migraine, may continue to experience lasting neurological impairments. Most individuals had relatively stable task performance over time, with some impairments persisting for up to 1 year. However, some individuals demonstrated substantial changes in performance, which highlights the heterogeneity of these neurological disorders. These findings demonstrate the need to consider factors that contribute to lasting neurological impairment, approaches that could be developed to alleviate the lasting effects of TIA or migraine, and the need to consider individual neurological status, even following transient neurological symptoms.

Project description:BackgroundThe Community of Practice (CoP) model represents one approach to address knowledge management to support effective implementation of best practices.ObjectiveWe sought to identify CoP developmental strategies within the context of a national quality improvement project focused on improving the quality for patients receiving acute transient ischemic attack (TIA) care.DesignStepped wedge trial.ParticipantsMultidisciplinary staff at six Veterans Affairs medical facilities.InterventionsTo encourage site implementation of a multi-component quality improvement intervention, the trial included strategies to improve the development of a CoP: site kickoff meetings, CoP conference calls, and an interactive website (the "Hub").ApproachMixed-methods evaluation included data collected through a CoP attendance log; semi-structured interviews with site participants at 6 months (n = 32) and 12 months (n = 30), and CoP call facilitators (n = 2); and 22 CoP call debriefings.Key resultsThe critical seeding structures that supported the cultivation of the CoP were the kickoffs which fostered relationships (key to the community element of CoPs) and provided the evidence base relevant to TIA care (key to the domain element of CoPs). The Hub provided the forum for sharing quality improvement plans and other tools which were further highlighted during the CoP calls (key to the practice element of CoPs). CoP calls were curated to create a positive context around participants' work by recognizing team successes. In addition to improving care at their local facilities, the community created a shared set of tools which built on their collective knowledge and could be shared within and outside the group.ConclusionsThe PREVENT CoP advanced the mission of the learning healthcare system by successfully providing a forum for shared learning. The CoP was grown through seeding structures that included kickoffs, CoP calls, and the Hub. A CoP expands upon the learning collaborative implementation strategy as an effective implementation practice.

Project description:BackgroundPatients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) are at increased risk for future cardiovascular events despite current preventive therapies. The identification of insulin resistance as a risk factor for stroke and myocardial infarction raised the possibility that pioglitazone, which improves insulin sensitivity, might benefit patients with cerebrovascular disease.MethodsIn this multicenter, double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 3876 patients who had had a recent ischemic stroke or TIA to receive either pioglitazone (target dose, 45 mg daily) or placebo. Eligible patients did not have diabetes but were found to have insulin resistance on the basis of a score of more than 3.0 on the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index. The primary outcome was fatal or nonfatal stroke or myocardial infarction.ResultsBy 4.8 years, a primary outcome had occurred in 175 of 1939 patients (9.0%) in the pioglitazone group and in 228 of 1937 (11.8%) in the placebo group (hazard ratio in the pioglitazone group, 0.76; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.62 to 0.93; P=0.007). Diabetes developed in 73 patients (3.8%) and 149 patients (7.7%), respectively (hazard ratio, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.33 to 0.69; P<0.001). There was no significant between-group difference in all-cause mortality (hazard ratio, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.73 to 1.17; P=0.52). Pioglitazone was associated with a greater frequency of weight gain exceeding 4.5 kg than was placebo (52.2% vs. 33.7%, P<0.001), edema (35.6% vs. 24.9%, P<0.001), and bone fracture requiring surgery or hospitalization (5.1% vs. 3.2%, P=0.003).ConclusionsIn this trial involving patients without diabetes who had insulin resistance along with a recent history of ischemic stroke or TIA, the risk of stroke or myocardial infarction was lower among patients who received pioglitazone than among those who received placebo. Pioglitazone was also associated with a lower risk of diabetes but with higher risks of weight gain, edema, and fracture. (Funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00091949.).

Project description:BackgroundRisk-stratification tools that have been developed to identify transient ischemic attack (TIA) patients at risk of recurrent vascular events typically include factors which are not readily available in electronic health record systems. Our objective was to evaluate two TIA risk stratification approaches using electronic health record data.MethodsPatients with TIA who were cared for in Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals (October 2015-September 2018) were included. The six outcomes were mortality, recurrent ischemic stroke, and the combined endpoint of stroke or death at 90-days and 1-year post-index TIA event. The cohort was split into development and validation samples. We examined the risk stratification of two scores constructed using electronic health record data. The Clinical Assessment Needs (CAN) score is a validated measure of risk of hospitalization or death. The PREVENT score was developed specifically for TIA risk stratification.ResultsA total of N = 5250 TIA patients were included in the derivation sample and N = 4248 in the validation sample. The PREVENT score had higher c-statistics than the CAN score across all outcomes in both samples. Within the validation sample the c-statistics for the PREVENT score were: 0.847 for 90-day mortality, 0.814 for 1-year mortality, 0.665 for 90-day stroke, and 0.653 for 1-year stroke, 0.699 for 90-day stroke or death, and 0.744 for 1-year stroke or death. The PREVENT score classified patients into categories with extreme nadir and zenith outcome rates. The observed 1-year mortality rate among validation patients was 7.1%; the PREVENT score lowest decile of patients had 0% mortality and the highest decile group had 30.4% mortality.ConclusionsThe PREVENT score had strong c-statistics for the mortality outcomes and classified patients into distinct risk categories. Learning healthcare systems could implement TIA risk stratification tools within electronic health records to support ongoing quality improvement.RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02769338 .

Dataset Information

Delay in seeking medical help following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) or "mini-stroke": a qualitative study.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Delay in seeking medical help following Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) or "mini-stroke": a qualitative study.

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