Evaluation of stroke pre-hospital management in Lebanon from symptoms onset to hospital arrival and impact on patients' status at discharge: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Hospital arrival time after acute ischemic stroke onset is the major factor limiting the eligibility of patients to receive intravenous thrombolysis. Shortening the prehospital delay is crucial to reducing morbidity and mortality for stroke patients. The study was conducted to investigate the factors that influence hospital arrival time after acute stroke onset in the Lebanese population and to assess the effect of the prehospital phase on patients' prognosis at discharge. METHOD: A prospective cross-sectional study was performed in eleven hospitals from April to July 2021 including 100 patients having stroke symptoms or transient ischemic attack (TIA). Two questionnaires were used to collect data addressing patient management in the pre-hospital phase and the in-hospital phase. Descriptive and bivariate analyses were done to evaluate the potential associations between prognosis, pre-hospital characteristics, and other factors. RESULTS: The patients' mean age was 70.36 ± 12.25 years, 43 (53.8%) of them were females, and 79 (85%) arrived within 3 hours after symptoms onset. Diabetic patients had a significant delay in hospital arrival compared with non-diabetics (27.0%vs.7.1%, p-value = 0.009). Moreover, 37 (75.5%) of school-level education patients arrived early at the hospital compared to 7 (100%) of university-level education (p-value = 0.009). The modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at discharge in patients with hemorrhagic stroke (10 (90%)) was worse than that in patients with ischemic stroke (38 (80%)) or TIA (3 (15%)) (p-value< 0.001). CONCLUSION: The study findings make it imperative to raise awareness about stroke symptoms among the Lebanese population. Emergency Medical Services should be utilized appropriately in the transportation of stroke patients to achieve optimal patient outcomes.