Introduction:

Assessing Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL), in addition to evaluating functional status in stroke patients could complement clinician practice.

Objective:

To assess HRQOL, applying EuroQol-5-dimensions (EQ-5D) in Colombian patients with stroke and correlating its results with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS).

Methods:

Analytical cross-sectional study in a cohort of ischemic stroke patients in Colombia at three months as a median follow-up (Q1: 1- Q3:3) after their event. We correlated EQ-5D domains, EQ-5D index, mRS with EQ-5D VAS score. We generated a simple linear regression robust model to evaluate the variability between using r2.

Results:

A total of 91 patients completed the EQ-5D questionnaire, with a mean age of 71.2 years; 59.3% were male. We identified an inverse correlation between EQ-5D VAS and EQ-5D domains with the highest for mobility (rs = -0.69) and the lowest for pain/discomfort (rs -0.52, p<0.001). The r2 ranged from 0.25 (pain/discomfort) to 0.47 (EQ-5D index). Patients with mRS ≥ 3 significantly reduced their EQ-5D VAS score by 25.64 points (95% CI -33.04, -18.24). Variability in EQ-5D VAS scores occurred by EQ-5D index (47%) and by mRS (34%).

Conclusions:

The correlation between EQ-5D and mRS was favorable. Although EQ-5D and mRS evaluated different spheres on stroke patients, applying the EQ-5D instrument in real-world clinical settings might contribute multidimensional information on how life is affected after a stroke. This kind of information serves to orientate rehabilitation strategies on specific domains such as depression, self-care, anxiety, and pain. This is especially relevant for patients with disabilities (mRS ≥ 3).