K4.9 Stroke (35-84 years)

Rate of hospital admissions for stroke in people aged 35 to 84 years

Cerebrovascular diseases and their consequences are a significant social burden in all developed countries of the world, including Slovenia. Risk factors: high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking, with high blood pressure being the most important for stroke, are available for primary prevention and belong to a group of factors that are largely linked to lifestyle. A stroke, as a sudden complication of coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular disease, affects on average just over 4,000 patients a year in Slovenia, i.e. one resident every two hours. Almost a quarter of patients die within the first year after a stroke. Although medicine has made significant progress in the acute treatment of stroke patients and in secondary prevention in the last decade, this still results in significantly reduced functionality in the majority of patients. Stroke is therefore an important health problem from several perspectives, as it is the leading cause of both physical and cognitive disability, and the costs of care and treatment are also very high. As a cause of premature death, long-term disability, high costs of care and reduced productivity, stroke represents major health and socioeconomic consequences for the patient and his family, and at the same time represents a significant economic burden for the country. Due to the convincing evidence of the effectiveness and feasibility of early treatment of stroke patients, secondary prevention, neurorehabilitation, and action plans, it is possible to achieve optimal effectiveness of stroke prevention and treatment and reduce the social burden of the disease.

The stroke hospitalization rate describes the number of non-fatal or fatal stroke hospitalizations for people aged 35 to 84 per 1,000 population in an observed calendar year.

An age-standardized rate is calculated, which enables mutual comparison of populations with different age structures.

Rate per 1,000 inhabitants.

The standardized stroke hospitalization rate is the ratio of the number of hospitalizations with the main discharge diagnosis of stroke among persons aged 35 to 84 years in the observed calendar year to the number of residents aged 35 to 84 inclusive in the middle of the same year, multiplied by 1,000.

ICD-10 disease categories included in the calculation are I60-I64. Only first admissions for hospital treatment due to these diagnoses are included.

Stroke

$=\frac{Number of hospitalizations due to stroke (35-84 years)}{Number of inhabi\tan ts (35-84 years)}\times 1.000$

The direct standardization method is used for standardization, where the Slovenian population from 2014 is used as the standard population. The 2016 publications show the average of three consecutive years (2011-2013), and the publications from 2017 onwards show the average of five consecutive years.

Record of Diseases, Poisonings, and Injuries Requiring Hospital Treatment, National Institute of Public Health.

Population, Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia.

Data on hospital treatments are published annually.

1. National Institute of Public Health ( http://www.nijz.si/ )
2. Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia ( http://www.stat.si/StatWeb )
3. Health for All Database ( http://data.euro.who.int/hfadb/ )