Knowledge of the signs of stroke appears to be low among U.S. women, particularly Hispanics, a survey showed.
Slightly more than half of the participants (51%) identified sudden one-sided weakness or numbness of the face or a limb as a stroke warning sign, but the rest of the warning signs were tagged by fewer than half, according to Heidi Mochari-Greenberger, PhD, MPH, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.
Those included difficulty speaking or understanding speech (identified by 44% overall but by a lower percentage in Hispanic versus white women), sudden severe headache (23%), unexplained dizziness (20%), and sudden loss of at least some vision (18%), she reported at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention/Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism meeting in San Francisco.
The vast majority of the women (84%), however, recognized that the first thing to do when experiencing signs of a stroke is to call 911.
The results -- which were published simultaneously online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association -- "suggest that efforts to improve recognition of stroke warning signs [have] the potential to reduce treatment delay and potentially improve outcomes in women," Mochari-Greenberger told MedPage Today.
Women are hit particularly hard by stroke, which represents the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. overall, but the third leading cause in women. And compared with men, more women have strokes each year, which is related to a longer lifespan and the increased risk of stroke at older ages.
To find out how aware women are of the signs of stroke, the researchers examined data from an American Heart Association survey on cardiovascular disease awareness that was conducted in 2012. The current analysis included a nationally representative sample of 1,205 women ages 25 and older; 54% were white, 17% were black, 17% were Hispanic, and 12% were identified as other.
Although it varied by specific stroke sign, knowledge was generally low, and 20% of women couldn't name even a single sign.
"The ability to recognize stroke warning signs at their onset is associated with more rapid access to emergency care, which may result in decreased stroke-related morbidity and mortality," the researchers wrote in their paper. "Addressing gaps in women's knowledge related to stroke warning signs may be a key initial step toward improving outcomes and reducing disparities."
Public health awareness campaigns can help, Mochari-Greenberger said, pointing to the AHA/American Stroke Association effort to improve recognition of the signs of stroke centered around the acronym FAST, which stands for Face drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulty, and Time to call 911.
And the lower awareness among Hispanic women might be addressed with a change in terminology, according to Ileana Piña, MD, MPH, of Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, who noted in comments recorded for the AHA that the word "stroke" is difficult to translate into Spanish.
"Calling it a 'brain attack' may be one way to get to it," she said.
"Making that comparison [to heart attack] to the public I think is important," she said. "Just like we're so worried about chest pain and getting patients ... quickly into the emergency department so that they don't lose their heart muscle, this is very similar. If you recognize the signs of this brain attack, getting the patient in sooner is saving brain tissue."
The study was supported, in part, by the National Institutes of Health.
The authors disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.
Todd Neale, MedPage Today Staff Writer, got his start in journalism at Audubon Magazine and made a stop in directory publishing before landing at MedPage Today. He received a B.S. in biology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an M.A. in journalism from the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting program at New York University.
