Evaluation of the possible impact of a care network for stroke and transient ischemic attack on rates of recurrence.

We aimed to demonstrate that a stroke network is able to reduce the proportion of recurrent cerebrovascular events. In 2003, we set up a care network with the aim to reduce the proportion of stroke recurrence. For the statistical analysis, recurrent cerebrovascular events observed from 1985 to 2002 within the population of Dijon made it possible to model trends using Poisson logistic regression. From 1985 to 2002, we recorded 172 recurrent cerebrovascular events which were used to model trends before the creation of the care network. Within the period 2003-2007, we observed 162 recurrent cerebrovascular events compared with 196.7 expected cerebrovascular events with a significant standardized incidence rate of 0.82 (0.70-0.96; p = 0.01). After eliminating the role of some environmental factors, the possible hypothesis for the fall in recurrent stokes is probably the positive effect of the stroke care network.