What Social Inequalities of Quality of Life (NEWSQOL domains) amongst patients does appear, two years after a stroke?

The quality of live “capability” must be taken into consideration because it affects stroke patients’ ability to make health choices. We aimed to analyse the relations between their socio-demographic characteristics and their quality of life (domains selected: interpersonal relationship, emotions, feelings, pain, sleep, fatigue). Methods: Two years after their stroke, 72 volunteers participated to a Luxembourg national survey. Completed at their home, the questionnaire included the six NEWSQOL* domains that responded to the criterion of an absence of direct consequence of the injuries caused by the stroke. For each domain, a multiple regression model was fit and adjusted by impairments (motor, vision, sensory, language, and memory). We performed a backward selection discarding, in succession, variables associated with highest p-values, until we obtained a set of explanatory variables significantly linked at the 10% level. Results: To be a woman is positively linked to a better quality of life (interpersonal relationships, feelings, sleep). The older patients and the ones living in couple have a less good quality of life with regards to fatigue. The current professional situation does not have any impact on quality of life; which is not the case for the occupation at the time of the stroke. Compared to the executives’ ones, the patients who never had a job, employees, and manual workers have a worse quality of life in terms of feelings. The manual workers, employees and the ones who never had a job show a minor good quality of life in relation to fatigue. When the patients’ educational level is lower than the first cycle of secondary education, their quality of life deteriorates in terms of interpersonal relationship, emotion, feelings, pain. After the stroke, changes in the financial position resulted in a less good quality of life in relation to interpersonal relationship, feelings, pain, sleep, whilst the ones in the occupational situation only worsened patients’ feelings and fatigue. “Feelings” (depression, control, independent) is the most associated NEWSQOL-domain with the socio-economic factors. Conclusion: Patients’ level of education and the changes in their financial position are determinants of social inequalities of quality of life amongst stroke survivors. A better elementary health education on stroke would make upcoming patients to gain in quality of life capacity. They will better adhere to the advice given within the therapeutics framework and psychological counseling as well as to the social accompaniment provided and the administrative requirements they have to accomplish to obtain financial aids.