Objective: To explore the relationship between blood pressure variability and worsening functional outcomes of patients upon discharge from the hospitals.
Methods: The study cohort consisted of 404 patients who presented to Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University with ischemic stroke during March 2012-March 2013. Systolic BP and diastolic BP were measured for each patient from admission to the fifth day and coefficient of variation blood pressure calculated. Disability at discharge was measured by the modified Rankin score (mRs). Chi-square test, t-test and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed.
Results: After adjustment for potential confounding factors including age, sex, activity, smoking, alcohol intake,BMI, heart rate, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, stroke history, lipid parameters, homocysteine and FPG, results from the multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that when DBP variability was greater than 9, it was associated with a significantly worse functional outcome at hospital discharge compared with those less than 9, with the odds ratio as 1.70 (95%CI:1.02-2.84). When comparing the ones that DBP variability more than 10 with the ones less than 10, the odds ratio was 1.86 (95% CI:1.11-3.13). However, there was no significant association seen between SBP variability and the worse functional outcome at hospital discharge.
Conclusion: Blood pressure variability might be associated with ischemic stroke outcome at hospital discharge but needed more evidence to approve.