Cardiovascular risk factors and quality of life among stroke survivors in Korea from 2013 to 2018: a cross-sectional cohort study

BACKGROUND: Although the cardiovascular health and quality of life (QoL) of stroke survivors have been previously studied, no study has investigated the correlation between cardiovascular health and QoL. This study aimed to investigate whether there would be a difference in the quality of life (QoL) in this population depending on the degree of cardiovascular health. METHODS: Overall, 577 people aged > 40 years who participated in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2013 to 2018 were included and were divided into three groups according to the survey period (2013-2014, n = 145; 2015-2016, n = 198; and 2017-2018, n = 234). Participants were further divided into the following groups based on their cardiovascular health score, as defined by the American Heart Association: poor, intermediate, and ideal groups. We examined how the health-related QoL score was expressed through the five-dimensional European Quality of Life Questionnaire (EQ-5D-3L). RESULTS: The ideal (cardiovascular health scores 11-14) and intermediate (cardiovascular health scores 8-10) groups had the lowest (7.72-8.14%) and highest (46.39-57.70%) number of participants, respectively. The total EQ-5D index score was highest in the ideal group, followed by the intermediate and poor groups across all three periods (2013-2014, p = 0.0015; 2015-2016, p = 0.0040; 2017-2018, p < 0.0001). The dimension-specific analysis revealed that, Findings showed that stroke survivors' mobility significantly varied by cardiovascular health scores (p = 0.0371 in 2015-2016, p =0.0486 in 2017-2018), whereas usual activities (p = 0.0322) and pain/discomfort (p = 0.0420) were significantly different among the three groups in 2015-2016. CONCLUSION: QoL in post-stroke survivors, when related to cardiovascular health degree, could be correlated with stroke sequelae.