Stroke Mimics on the Stroke Unit - Temporal trends 2008-2017 at a large Norwegian university hospital

The objective was to quantify temporal trends in stroke mimics (SM) admissions relative to cerebrovascular accidents (CVA), incidence of hospitalized SMs and characterize the SM case-mix at a general hospital's stroke unit (SU).

All SU admissions (n = 11240) of patients aged 15 or older to Haukeland University Hospital between 2008-2017 were prospectively included and categorized as CVA or SM. Logistic regression was used to estimate time trends in the proportion of SMs among the admissions. Poisson regression was used to estimate time trends in age- and sex-dependent SM incidence.

SMs were on average younger thaan CVA patients (68.3 vs. 71.4 years) and had a higher proportion of females (53.6% vs. 44.5%). The total proportion of SM admissions was 51.0%. There was an increasing time trend in the proportion of SM admissions, odds ratio 1.150 per year (p < 0.001), but this trend appears flattening, represented by a significant quadratic time-term, odds ratio 1.009 (p < 0.001). A higher SM proportion was also associated with the time period of a Mass Media Intervention (FAST campaign) in 2014. There was also an increasing trend in SM incidence, that remains after adjusting for age, sex, and population; also, for incidence the trend appears to be flattening.

SMs account for approximately half of the SU admissions, and the proportion has been increasing. A FAST campaign appears to have temporarily increased the SM proportion. The age- and sex-dependent incidence of SM has been increasing but appears to flatten out.