Symptom clusters in patients with hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage during the acute phase and their correlation with prognostic quality of life

Abstract

Objective To explore the composition of symptom clusters in the acute phase of patients with hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage and to analyse their correlation with prognostic quality of life. Methods From July 2021 to June 2022, 396 patients with hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage hospitalised in neurosurgery departments of two tertiary care hospitals in Tangshan City were selected and surveyed using the General Information Questionnaire, the Memory Symptom Assessment Scale and the Stroke-Specific Quality of Life Scale. An exploratory factor method was used to extract symptom clusters and Biased correlation analysis was applied to analyse the correlation between symptom clusters and quality of life. Results Symptoms with a higher incidence in the acute phase in patients with hypertensive cerebral hemorrhage included loss of appetite (77.3%), low energy/weakness (74.0%), pain (72.9%), weight loss (71.5%), and feeling nervous (70.7%); symptoms with a higher degree of severity included loss of appetite (2.01±1.22), low energy/weakness (2.00±1.32), pain (1.97±1.30), vomiting/nausea (1.83±1.21), difficulty concentrating (1.81±1.30); symptoms with higher levels of distress included pain (2.27±1.53), vomiting/nausea (2.20±1.48), vomiting (1.98±1.59), low energy/weakness (1.96±1.30), dizziness (1.81±1.40). A total of six symptom clusters were extracted by the exploratory factor method, namely digestive symptom cluster, psychological symptom cluster, pain-fatigue related symptom cluster, physical-cognitive impairment symptom cluster, speech-swallowing disorder symptom cluster and pneumonia related symptom cluster, all of which were negatively correlated with prognostic quality of life with correlation coefficients of-0.261,-0.388,-0.335,-0.513,-0.304,-0.273. Conclusion The presence of six symptom clusters in the acute phase of hypertensive cerebral haemorrhage patients, all of which were negatively associated with prognosis of quality of life, suggests that medical staff should identify or predict symptom clusters in a timely and accurate manner and optimise symptom management strategies to improve patients ‘ prognosis of quality of life.

Keywords

• cerebral haemorrhage
• stroke
• symptoms cluster
• symptom management
• quality of life
• exploratory factor analysis