Abstract Background Rehabilitation becomes more difficult after a stroke, which causes long-term disability worldwide and is especially difficult in nations like Bangladesh that lack adequate resources. While functional recovery depends on physical activity (PA), inappropriate pain coping strategies can reduce its efficacy. Improving recovery outcomes can be accomplished by gaining an understanding of relationship between PA levels and pain coping strategies. Aims To investigate the relationship between physical activity levels and pain coping strategies among stroke survivors. Methods A cross-sectional study involving 128 stroke survivors in Bangladesh used the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and Pain Coping Inventory (PCI) to measure physical activity levels and pain coping strategies. Descriptive and analytical analysis were performed by SPSS version 25. Results The findings revealed that moderate PA was experienced by 65.6% of the individuals, low PA by 32.0%, and high PA by only 2.3%. More people used passive coping (mean: 51.14 ±6.45) than active coping (mean: 25.32 ±3.72). While passive coping shown a negative correlation (r = -0.356, p 0.01), active coping linked favorably with PA (r = 0.383, p 0.01). Active coping was found by regression analysis to strongly predict greater PA levels (B = 57.34, p = 0.001). There were weaker positive correlations for duration of stroke and rehabilitation. Conclusions The study emphasizes the need of active coping mechanisms in improving PA and recovery in stroke survivors, so pointing out the need of specialized rehabilitation programs including active pain management strategies, adaptive coping mechanisms, and culturally sensitive therapies. Conflict of interest Md Borhan Uddin Sohan: nothing to disclose.
M D Borhan Sohan (Fri,) studied this question.