In Australia, someone suffers a stroke every 19 minutes and it is one of Australia’s biggest killers.
In addition, nearly half of all survivors of stroke are expected to experience a recurrent cardiovascular event within 10 years.
In a study from Monash University, scientists found how critical it is for survivors of first-time stroke to take medications on an ongoing basis, with new findings highlighting long-term links with survival.
Specific medications help to prevent stroke recurrence, but adherence to these agents is often suboptimal among patients.
In the study, researchers used linked data from 8,363 adult patients who survived a first stroke between July 2010 and June 2014, with follow-up for a further three years.
They found for patients with one-year adherence above 60%, each 10% improvement in adherence was linked to a 13–15% reduction in the death risk.
The team says there are several factors associated with a greater chance of continued use of secondary prevention medications:
Provision of medication on hospital discharge, regular contact with a primary care physician, and specialist physician contact.
These findings represent important implications for practice by highlighting the value of efforts to improve medication adherence post-stroke, even among patients with near-perfect adherence.
If you care about stroke, please read studies about what to eat for stroke prevention, and small surgery can prevent strokes in people with heart issues.
For more information about stroke, please see recent studies about drug combo that can cut risk of stroke and heart attack by half, and results showing MIND diet could slow down cognitive decline after stroke.
The study was conducted by Monique Kilkenny et al and published in Stroke.
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