Table 1. Demographic characteristics of study samples at recruitment.

	(A) Study samples for longitudinal comparisons between pre- and post-stroke HRQoL		(B) Study samples for cross-sectional comparisons with population norms
	(A1) 0–3 month	(A2) 0-12month	(B1) At recruitment	(B2) 3 month post-stroke	(B3) 12 month post-stroke
	N = 285	N = 238	N = 464	N = 306	N = 258
	% or mean (sd)	% or mean (sd)	% or mean (sd)	% or mean (sd)	% or mean (sd)
Age (years)	61.7 (9.9)	60.7 (9.5)	61.8 (10.3)	61.5 (10.1)	60.7 (9.7)
Gender
Male	70.2	67.6	67.5	69.9	66.3
Female	29.8	32.4	32.5	30.1	33.7
Ethnicity
Chinese	67.7	68.1	69.4	66.7	66.7
Malay	22.8	21.9	21.3	23.5	23.3
Indian and others	9.5	10.1	9.3	9.8	10.1
Marital status
Single	9.8	8.4	12.3	9.8	8.5
Married	76.8	77.7	71.3	76.5	76.4
Separated/ Divorced	3.9	5.9	6.0	3.9	5.8
Widowed	9.5	8.0	10.3	9.8	9.3
Primary caregiver
Spouse	56.9	57.8	52.8	57.9	58.0
Child	22.6	21.5	23.9	22.4	22.6
Sibling	5.0	5.9	6.5	4.9	5.8
Maid/ Others	4.2	5.1	5.0	4.3	4.7
None	11.3	9.7	11.7	10.5	8.9
Religion
Christianity	11.6	12.2	12.5	11.4	12.4
Buddhism / Taoism	47.4	46.2	48.1	47.1	45.4
Islam	27.0	26.5	24.8	28.1	27.9
Hinduism/ Others	4.6	4.2	5.8	4.3	3.9
No religion	9.5	10.9	8.8	9.2	10.5
Baseline survey mode
Stroke patient	100.0	100.0	100.0	93.1	92.3
Primary caregiver	0.0	0.0	0.0	6.9	7.7
Subtype of stroke
Infarct (ischemic)	91.6	91.2	90.9	89.9	89.5
Haemorrhage/ both	8.4	8.8	9.1	10.1	10.5
Comorbidities
Hypertension	71.6	70.2	71.1	70.9	70.2
Hyperlipidaemia	68.8	66.0	68.5	68.6	66.3
Diabetes mellitus	38.3	39.9	37.1	39.2	41.5
NIHSS	3.9 (3.4)	3.8 (3.5)	4.0 (3.7)	4.0 (3.6)	4.0 (3.8)
MMSE	25.2 (4.3)	25.1 (4.6)	24.5 (4.9)	24.8 (5.0)	24.5 (5.7)

NIHSS, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination.