Factors Associated With Post-Stroke Fatigue Dimensions Over the Second Year After Acute Cerebrovascular Events

Post-stroke fatigue (PSF) is a common and often debilitating sequel of both strokes and transient ischemic attacks. Aim. Identify factors that are associated with global PSF and certain PSF domains over the second year after acute cerebrovascular events (ACE) occurrence. Object and methods. Patients were examined quarterly: 201 at the beginning and 126 patients at the end of the second year after ACE. Global PSF and each PSF domain (physical, mental, motivational, activity-related) were measured by multidimensional fatigue inventory-20 scale (a cut-off of 12 out of 20 for every sub-scale). Results. In univariate logistic regression analysis most of the studied variables (gender, marital status, education level, apathetic impairments, excessive daytime sleepiness, arterial hypertension, ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation, diabetes mellitus, ischemic stroke subtype, affected cerebral arterial region, neuroimaging indexes of cerebral atrophy) were not significantly associated with global PSF as well as with any PSF component. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that during the second year after ACE occurrence global PSF was statistically significantly associated with depressive sings and modified Rankin scale score, mental PSF with anxious signs, cognitive impairments and leukoaraiosis extension due to Fazekas scale score, motivational PSF with anxious signs, depressive signs and Fazekas scale score, activity-related PSF with depressive signs and modified Rankin scale score. Conclusions. 1. Different PSF domains were associated with quite different set of factors over the second year after ACE occurrence. 2. The full set of contributing to PSF factors included anxious and depressive signs, cognitive impairments, post-stroke disability (due to modified Rankin scale score) and leukoaraiosis level (due to Fazekas scale score).