Relationships among hemoglobin, insomnia, physical activity, and fatigue in post-stroke patients

Abstract

Background: Fatigue is a frequent problem reported in stroke patients. It is a barrier for stroke rehabilitation leading to patients’ social isolation; a barrier for patients to get back to work, making them dependent on someone else, and affecting their quality of life. Finally, fatigue is a predicting factor of death in stroke patients.

Objectives: To explore fatigue and its correlation including hemoglobin, insomnia, and physical activity.

Methods: A total of 100 stroke patients were recruited from the neurology outpatient departments at Police General Hospital, and King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand. All participants responded to a set of questionnaires in a structured interview format including the Demographic Characteristics Questionnaire, the Fatigue Severity Scale, the Insomnia Severity Index, and the Global Physical Activity Questionnaire. All instruments were tested for content validity by 5 experts and their reliabilities were 0.98, 0.98, and 0.96, respectively. Frequency, percentage, mean standard deviation and Pearson’s product correlation were used in data analysis.

Results: The stroke patients reported fatigue were 63%. Hemoglobin was negatively correlated with fatigue in stroke patients (r = -0.511, P < 0.05). Insomnia was positively correlated with fatigue in stroke patients (r = 0.385, P < 0.05). Lastly, physical activity was not significantly correlated with fatigue.

Conclusion: Fatigue assessment is very important since the incidence of fatigue is very high in stroke patients. Factors relating to fatigue such as insomnia and hemoglobin should be managed.