Relation between health utility score and physical activity in community-dwelling ambulatory patients with stroke: a preliminary cross-sectional study

Background: The health utility score in patients with stroke relates to physical, psychological, and various other factors. However, the relationship between the health utility score in patients with stroke and objective physical activity has not been clarified. Objective: To clarify the relation between the health utility score and objective physical activity in community-dwelling ambulatory patients with stroke. Design: A cross-sectional study. Method: Patients who received outpatient consultation from a stroke certified nurse after discharge were recruited. We assessed health-related quality of life with the EuroQoL 5-Dimension 3-Level questionnaire and calculated the health utility score. We measured the daily number of steps taken as the index of objective physical activity using an accelerometer. Results: Twenty-two patients (72.7% men, 69.5 years old) were included. The health utility score was 0.78 +/- 0.14. The physical activity value as indicated by the number of steps taken was 6276.3 +/- 4640.7 steps. The health utility score showed a significant positive correlation with the number of steps taken (r = 0.466, p = 0.029). Conclusions: The present study showed that the health utility score correlated significantly with objective physical activity in community-dwelling ambulatory patients with stroke. The more the patients with stroke walked, the higher their health utility score was. Further studies should assess other domains of health-related quality of life to comprehensively verify this relationship.