RÉSUMÉ
Objective:To investigate the symptoms and symptom clusters of elderly stroke patients in the acute phase, analyze the factors influencing the symptom clusters and to provide a basis for the implementation of targeted symptom management in elderly stroke patients.Methods:Convenience sampling method was used to select 257 acute-phase elderly stroke patients who attended Fenyang Hospital in Shanxi Province from October 2022 to January 2023, and a cross-sectional survey was conducted by the General Information Questionnaire, Memory Symptom Evaluation Inventory, Modified Barthel Index Scale (MBI), and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), and the symptom clusters were extracted by means of exploratory factor analysis, and the factors influencing symptom clusters were explored by means of binary logistic regression analysis.Results:Of the 257 patients, 138 were male and 119 were female, aged 60 to 90 (70.34 ± 6.94) years old. Factor analysis yielded four symptom clusters, which were named oral-intestinal symptom cluster, negative emotional symptom cluster, fatigue symptom cluster, and perceptual symptom cluster according to the symptom characteristics; regression analysis showed that: stroke site and NIHSS scores were the influencing factors of the oral-intestinal symptom cluster (all P<0.05); per capita monthly family income, number of episodes and MBI scores were the influencing factors of the negative emotional symptom cluster (all P<0.05); number of chronic diseases, type of stroke, and gender were the influencing factors of the fatigue emotional symptom cluster (all P<0.05); and literacy and stroke site were influencing factors of the perception symptom cluster (all P<0.05). Conclusions:Elderly stroke patients in the acute phase of the existence of more symptoms, symptoms interact with each other to form symptom clusters, health care personnel should be symptom clusters as a unit, the implementation of interventions for their influencing factors, effective symptom management, in order to improve the quality of life of patients.