Stroke-unit care for stroke patients in China: the results from Bigdata Observatory platform for Stroke of China

To assess whether stroke patients admitted to stroke units (SU) have a better short-term outcome than those treated in conventional wards (CW). A total of 20 hospitals from 16 provinces in China were initially selected in this study. Finally, 24,090 consecutive admissions in 2013–2015 treated in CW and 21,332 consecutive entries in 2017–2019 treated in SU were included. The primary endpoint of this study was the all-cause death or dependency condition three months after admission. Patients in the SU group were more likely receiving thrombolytic therapy (3.9 vs 2.1%) and intravascular treatment (1.2 and 0.7%). In-hospital death were lower in the SU group than the CW group (SU vs CW: 2.93 vs 4.58% [absolute difference, − 2.28% {95% CI, − 3.32% to − 0.93%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.72{95% CI, 0.61 to 0.82}]. Death after discharge was also lower in the SU group than the CW (SU vs CW: 5.07 vs 6.72% [absolute difference, − 2.33% {95% CI, − 3.39% to − 0.90%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.75{95% CI, 0.68 to 0.84}]. In addition, patients who received SU care were less likely to be dead or disabled than those patients who received CW care after adjusting for other variability (SU vs CW: 36.20 vs 44.33% [absolute difference, − 11.33% {95% CI, − 15.32% to − 7.14%}, odd ratio {OR}, 0.78{95% CI, 0.80 to 0.85}]. Among patients with stroke, admission to a designated SU was associated with modestly lower mortality at discharge, reduced probability of death, or being disabled at the end of follow-up.