Stroke outcomes research requires risk-adjustment for stroke severity, but this measure is often unavailable. The Passive Surveillance Stroke SeVerity (PaSSV) score is an administrative data-based stroke severity measure that was developed in Ontario, Canada. We assessed the geographical and temporal external validity of PaSSV in British Columbia (BC), Nova Scotia (NS) and Ontario, Canada.

We used linked administrative data in each province to identify adult patients with ischemic stroke or intracerebral hemorrhage between 2014-2019 and calculated their PaSSV score. We used Cox proportional hazards models to evaluate the association between the PaSSV score and the hazard of death over 30 days and the cause-specific hazard of admission to long-term care over 365 days. We assessed the models’ discriminative values using Uno’s c-statistic, comparing models with versus without PaSSV.

We included 86,142 patients (n = 18,387 in BC, n = 65,082 in Ontario, n = 2,673 in NS). The mean and median PaSSV were similar across provinces. A higher PaSSV score, representing lower stroke severity, was associated with a lower hazard of death (hazard ratio and 95% confidence intervals 0.70 [0.68, 0.71] in BC, 0.69 [0.68, 0.69] in Ontario, 0.72 [0.68, 0.75] in NS) and admission to long-term care (0.77 [0.76, 0.79] in BC, 0.84 [0.83, 0.85] in Ontario, 0.86 [0.79, 0.93] in NS). Including PaSSV in the multivariable models increased the c-statistics compared to models without this variable.

PaSSV has geographical and temporal validity, making it useful for risk-adjustment in stroke outcomes research, including in multi-jurisdiction analyses.

Women are more likely to be admitted to nursing home after stroke than men. Differences in patient characteristics and outcomes by sex after institutionalization are less understood. We examined sex differences in the characteristics and care needs of patients admitted to nursing home following stroke and their subsequent survival.

We identified patients with stroke newly admitted to nursing home between April 2011 and March 2016 in Ontario, Canada, with follow-up until March 2018 using linked administrative data. We calculated prevalence ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the primary outcomes of dependence for activities of daily living, cognitive impairment, frailty, health instability, and symptoms of depression or pain, comparing women to men. The secondary outcome was all-cause mortality.

Among 4831 patients, 60.9% were women. Compared to men, women were older (median age [interquartile range, IQR]: 84 [78, 89] vs. 80 [71, 86]), more likely to be frail (prevalence ratio 1.14, 95% CI [1.08, 1.19]), have unstable health (1.45 [1.28, 1.66]), and experience symptoms of depression (1.25 [1.11, 1.40]) or pain (1.21 [1.13, 1.30]), and less likely to have aggressive behaviors (0.87 [0.80, 0.94]). Overall median survival was 2.9 years. In a propensity-score-matched cohort, women had lower mortality than men (hazard ratio 0.85, 95% CI [0.77, 0.94]), but in the age-stratified survival analysis, the survival advantage in women was limited to those aged 75 years and older.

Despite lower subsequent mortality, women admitted to nursing home after stroke required more care than men. Pain and depression are two treatable symptoms that disproportionately affect women.

Optimal stroke care requires access to resources such as neuroimaging, acute revascularization, rehabilitation, and stroke prevention services, which may not be available in rural areas. We aimed to determine geographic access to stroke care for residents of rural communities in the province of Ontario, Canada.

We used the Ontario Road Network File database linked with the 2016 Ontario Acute Stroke Care Resource Inventory to estimate the proportion of people in rural communities, defined as those with a population size <10,000, who were within 30, 60, and 240 minutes of travel time by car from stroke care services, including brain imaging, thrombolysis treatment centers, stroke units, stroke prevention clinics, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and endovascular treatment centers.

Of the 1,496,262 people residing in rural communities, the majority resided within 60 minutes of driving time to a center with computed tomography (85%), thrombolysis (81%), a stroke unit (68%), a stroke prevention clinic (74%), or inpatient rehabilitation (77.0%), but a much lower proportion (32%) were within 60 minutes of driving time to a center capable of providing endovascular thrombectomy (EVT).

Most rural Ontario residents have appropriate geographic access to stroke services, with the exception of EVT. This information may be useful for jurisdictions seeking to optimize the regional organization of stroke care services.

Vertigo is common in the emergency department (ED). Most aetiologies are peripheral and do not require hospitalization, but many patients still fear falling. Some patients may be taking opioid analgesic medications (for other reasons); the risk of falls leading to fractures among patients with vertigo could be potentiated by the simultaneous use of opioids.

To examine the risk of fractures in discharged ED patients with peripheral vertigo who were being prescribed opioids during the same time period.

Linked administrative databases from Ontario were used to compare discharged ED patients aged ≥65 with peripheral vertigo to patients with urinary tract infection (UTI) from 2006 to 2011. We used Cox regression analysis with an interaction term to estimate the modifying effect of an opioid prescription on the hazard of fracture within 90 days.

There were 13,012 patients with a peripheral vertigo syndrome and 76,885 with a UTI. Thirteen percent of the vertigo cohort and 25% of the UTI cohort had access to a filled opioid prescription. Compared to vertigo patients who did not fill an opioid prescription, the adjusted hazard of fracture among vertigo patients who did fill a prescription was 3.59 (95% CI 1.97–6.13). Among UTI patients who filled an opioid prescription the hazard ratio was 1.68 (95% CI 1.43–1.97) compared to UTI patients who did not.

Patients discharged from the ED with peripheral vertigo who were also being prescribed opioids had a higher hazard of subsequent fracture compared to those who were not, and the effect was much greater than among UTI patients. These results suggest that in the acutely vertiginous older patient, opioid analgesic medications should be modified, where possible.