Sex differences in acute telestroke care: more to the story.
Publication/Presentation Date
1-1-2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown sex differences in stroke care. Female patients have both lower thrombolytic treatment rates with OR reported as low as 0.57 and worse outcomes. With updated standards of care and improved access to care through telestroke, there is potential to reduce or alleviate these disparities.
METHODS: Acute stroke consultations seen by TeleSpecialists, LLC physicians in the emergency department in 203 facilities (23 states) from January 1, 2021 to April 30, 2021 were extracted from the Telecare by TeleSpecialists
RESULTS: There were 18,783 (10,073 female and 8,710 male) total patients included. Of the total, 6.9% of females received thrombolytics compared to 7.9% of males (OR 0.86, 95% CI 0.75-0.97,
CONCLUSION: While treatment differences between sexes existed in the data and were apparent in univariate analysis, no significant difference was seen in multivariate analysis once stroke risk factors, age, NIHSS score and admitting diagnosis were taken into consideration in the telestroke setting. Differences in rates of thrombolysis between sexes may therefore be reflective of differences in risk factors and symptomatology rather than a healthcare disparity.
Volume
14
First Page
1203502
Last Page
1203502
ISSN
1664-2295
Published In/Presented At
Sevilis, T., Avila, A., McDonald, M., Fowler, M., Chalfin, R., Amir, M., Heath, G., Zaman, M., Avino, L., Boyd, C., Gao, L., & Devlin, T. (2023). Sex differences in acute telestroke care: more to the story. Frontiers in neurology, 14, 1203502. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2023.1203502
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
PubMedID
37426435
Department(s)
Department of Medicine
Document Type
Article