More than 10% of women in the Gothenburg area will be affected by stroke sometime in their life. This is the conclusion of the extensive Population Study of Women in Gothenburg carried out at the University of Gothenburg. The scientists have also successfully tested a method in which patients who attend local health centers are encouraged to make preventative changes in their lifestyle.
Scientists have been studying the health of 1,462 women in the Gothenburg region since the end of the 1960s, in a well-known study entitled the Population Study of Women in Gothenburg.
The most recent work has focused on the risk of stroke. The study has shown that during the 32-year study period 13% of women were affected by stroke in the form of cerebral infarction and/or cerebral haemorrhage.
The survey has also shown that the risk of stroke is strongly correlated with lifestyle factors such as overweight and smoking, and with medical risk factors such as high blood pressure, heart fibrillation and diabetes. The risk of stroke for women who had been diagnosed with heart fibrillation, for example, was twice that of healthy women.
“It’s important to prevent stroke by changing risk behavior such as a low level of physical activity, smoking, poor diet, stress and a stressful life. It’s also important to find tools that can achieve this in the primary care system. We also saw a strong correlation between an increase in physical activity and an increase in well-being in these women,” says Ann Blomstrand.
People who seek medical care differ, however, in their willingness to change lifestyle. In order to identify motivated patients, Ann Blomstrand and her colleagues tried a new method, in which both male and female patients at eight local health centers in Hisingen completed a questionnaire about their lifestyle. These patients were also offered the opportunity to have their health profile determined, to participate in health counselling, and to check their blood pressure and blood glucose level.
Those who stated that their lifestyle was “less favorable”, while at the same time wishing to do something about it, were offered the opportunity to participate in the program. Follow-up one year later showed that many of the 2,120 participants had reduced their blood glucose level and blood pressure, lost weight, reduced their waist measurement, and had a lower BMI than the average values.
Alcohol consumption had also changed for the better: 35 participants, or nearly two thirds, of the 55 who had reported a high consumption in the questionnaire, reported one year later that they had reduced their alcohol consumption. Twenty percent of the participants stated that their general well-being had improved.
“Our study shows that it is possible to get hold of motivated individuals using lifestyle questions, and that these people can often become involved in their own preventative care, with support from healthcare personnel. This, in turn, benefits well-being and can reduce the risk of common conditions such as stroke, heart disease and diabetes,” says Ann Blomstrand, who presents the studies in her doctoral thesis.
The positive experience from the project has led to Västra Götalands Närhälsa starting to introduce the method.
The thesis Life style intervention in primary care and aspects on stroke prevention will be defended at a public disputation on 3 April.
Link to the thesis: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/34832
A film with Ann Blomstrand explaining the method:
