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PLOS One logoLink to PLOS One
. 2021 Aug 9;16(8):e0255279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255279

Analysis of prevalence and influencing factors of stroke in elderly hypertensive patients: Based on the screening plan for the high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District, Shanghai

Jiefeng Liu 1, Yuqian Chen 2, Chunlin Jin 2, Duo Chen 2, Guangfeng Gao 3, Fen Li 2,*
Editor: Y Zhan4
PMCID: PMC8351920  PMID: 34370757

Abstract

Background

The purpose of this study is to investigate and analyze the prevalence and influencing factors of stroke in hypertensive patients aged 60 and above in Jiading District, Shanghai.

Methods

The population-based study included 18,724 screened people with hypertension (age ≥ 60 years, 48.7% women). From 2016 to 2019, data on demographics, potential influencing factors and health status were collected through face-to-face interviews, physical examinations, and laboratory tests. Logistic multivariate logistic regression model was used to analyze the influencing factors associated with stroke.

Results

Among the object of study from 2016 to 2019, 2,025 patients were screened for stroke, with the overall prevalence rate of 10.82% (10.41%-11.23%). Multivariate adjusted model analysis showed that dyslipidemia (OR:1.31,95%CI:1.19–1.45), lack of exercise (OR:1.91,95%CI:1.32–2.76), atrial fibrillation [OR:1.49,95%CI:1.35–1.65), family history of stroke (OR:2.18,95%CI:1.6–2.88) were the significant independent influencing factors of stroke in hypertensive patients over 60 years old. When these four factors were combined, compared with participants without any of these factors, the multi-adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of risk of stroke for persons concurrently having one, two and three or more of these factors were 1.89 (1.67–2.13), 2.15 (1.86–2.47) and 6.84 (4.90–9.55), respectively (linear trend P < 0.001); after multivariate adjustment, the family history of stroke had additive interaction with lack of exercise [RERI = 1.08(0.22–1.94), AP = 0.19(0.04–0.35), S = 1.31(1.02–1.69)], dyslipidemia [RERI = 0.87(0.41–1.33), AP = 0.23(0.08–0.38), S = 1.46(1.04–2.05)].

Conclusion

The prevalence of stroke was high in hypertensive patients aged 60 and above in Jiading District, Shanghai. Dyslipidemia, lack of exercise, atrial fibrillation and family history of stroke were significantly associated with stroke in hypertensive population. Stroke risk can be increased especially when multiple factors coexisting, and family history of stroke combined with a lack of exercise or dyslipidemia.

Introduction

Stroke is a complex disease affected by many factors, some which may be independent, but also may interact with each other. The pathogenesis and risk factors of stroke in different regions and different populations are not completely clear, and the influencing factors of stroke in people with different characteristics (gender, age, and underlying diseases) are not completely consistent [1, 2]. Stroke is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in people with hypertension. Hypertension is the most important and changeable risk factor of stroke. Consequently, it is important to investigate the factors that influence stroke in hypertensive patients and to implement targeted intervention strategies [3]. However, in different studies, the influencing factors of stroke in patients with hypertension are inconsistent, which may be related to region and race. Moreover, Few studies have examined at the interaction between multiple risk factors and stroke, which is important because risk factors often coexist in middle-aged and elderly people [4]. Therefore, this study has examined the prevalence of stroke, influencing factors and their relationship in hypertensive patients, based on a large-scale and high-quality screening program for high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District of Shanghai, in order to provide more evidence for precise intervention required to reduce the risk of stroke.

Materials and methods

Research design

The research design of this survey is based on a screening and intervention plan for stroke high-risk populations in a certain district of Shanghai. The plan was implemented in 2016. It provides screening services for people at high risk of stroke for residents over 35 years of age who are under the health management of chronic diseases in the community, and implements full coverage screening for key populations (populations with hypertension, diabetes, and heart diseases). The screening program is implemented in two phases. The first phase was carried out in the local community center. Residents aged 35 and up were interviewed by qualified medical professionals using a self-made standard questionnaire. The standard questionnaire included demographic, medical history, family history of stroke, medication history, lifestyle, and vascular influencing factors. Educational background, marital status, occupation was also recorded. Weight, height, waist circumference and blood pressure were measured and recorded according to standard procedures. Participants with a history of stroke were examined at the scene by a professional neurologist for confirmation. The second stage was to collect data that cannot be obtained in the field, including ECG (electro cardio gram), fasting blood glucose and serum lipid groups, such as low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides and total cholesterol.

Study population

Since 2016, a comprehensive screening of all chronic patients has been conducted in the Chronic Disease Management Bank of Jiading District, Shanghai, as well as a community-wide survey. The plan is mainly based on the district’s chronic disease registration management database. It registers all diagnosed chronic disease patients in the district. According to the principle of "informed, consent, and voluntary", the health department and the community strengthen publicity and guidance. All hypertension patients over 35 years old who met the required criteria were completely screened. The required criteria as follows: 1) permanent residents over 35 years old who had lived in the area for at least 6 months; 2) diagnosed as hypertensive patients; 3) no contraindications to screening; and 4) able to sign informed consent with their guardians and voluntarily participate in all screening programs. And as of 2019, 26,174 hypertensive patients were randomly selected as survey participants, and after excluding people who are unwilling to cooperate and who did not meet the required criteria, we were able to screen 21,902 hypertensive patients, with a screening response rate of 83.69%. We recorded the potential influencing factors of stroke and the occurrence of stroke in these screened participants. In the end, we settled on a sample population of 18,724 people aged 60 and up who had hypertension.

Assessment and definition of variables

  1. Hypertension: any of the following criteria can be met: (a) History of hypertension (Provided a hospital diagnosis certificate). (b) The results of this screening showed that blood pressure was increased (systolic blood pressure 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure 90 mmHg).

  2. Atrial fibrillation or valvular heart disease: anyone of the following can be met: (a) Previous medical history (Provided a hospital diagnosis certificate). (b) The patient’s electrocardiogram (ECG) in this screening showed atrial fibrillation. The diagnostic basis must meet the following criteria: regular and orderly atrial electrical activity has disappeared, replaced by rapid and disordered fibrillation waves on the electrocardiogram. ECG showed that P wave disappeared and replaced by F wave. The R-R interval was 5.

  3. Smoking: People who smoke continuously or cumulatively for 6 months or more in a lifetime are defined as smokers.

  4. Dyslipidemia: any of the following criteria can be met: (a)Previous medical history (Provided a hospital diagnosis certificate). (b) In this field survey, total cholesterol was 6.22 mmol/L (240 mg/D), and glyceride was more than 2.26 mmol/L. (200 mg/DD), high density lipoprotein < 1.04 mmol/L (40 mg/D), one or more of the abnormalities can determine dyslipidemia.

  5. Diabetes: any of the following criteria can be met: (a) Patients with previous medical history (Provided a hospital diagnosis certificate) and receiving diabetes drugs or insulin treatment. (b) The field measurement showed high blood glucose (random blood glucose ≥11.0mmol/l or fasting blood glucose ≥7.0mmol/l).

  6. Lack of exercise: The standard refers to CHNS Reference [5], exercise more than 3 times a week, moderate intensity or more than 30 minutes each time or engaged in moderate and severe physical workers are regarded as regular physical exercise; otherwise, it is lack of exercise.

  7. Family history of stroke: Provided a hospital diagnosis certificate, The diagnosis is based on anyone in the immediate family (grandfather, grandmother, parents and siblings) who has ever been diagnosed with a stroke [6].

  8. obesity: BMI ≥28 kg/m2 and overweight: BMI of 24–27.9 kg/m2.

  9. Stroke: The diagnosis of stroke is mainly based on the diagnostic criteria of the WHO collaborative group [7], combined with the surveyed person’s reports on previous diagnoses, and the patient is required to provide corresponding medical documents or imaging data.

  10. Course of hypertension (years): The amount of years between a patient’s diagnosis of hypertension and the screening.(11)Education: (a) Primary school or illiterate refers to having only received the most basic elementary education of 6 years or less in China; (b) have completed a 9-year compulsory education or higher education is referred to as secondary school and above in China.

Data statistics

A cross-sectional study was conducted in the hypertensive patients who received the high-risk screening for stroke. We used IBM SPSS Statistics V22.0 for Windows (IBM Corp. Released 2013, Armonk, NY: IBM Corp) for all analyses. All characteristics between participants with and without stroke were compared using t-test for continuous variables and χ2 test for categorical variables. Multivariable logistic model was used to estimate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of stroke associated with individual influencing factors and their load, which was assessed by counting the number of influencing factors that were significantly related to an increased odds ratio of stroke (P≤0.05). We reported the results from two models: Model 1 was adjusted for age and gender, while Model 2 was adjusted for education, and if applicable, for course of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking status, use of anti-hypertensive drugs, overweight or obesity, few physical exercises, marriage status and Atrial fibrillation or valvular heart disease.

To evaluate the additive interaction between two factors, we used relative excess risk due to the interaction (RERI), which was also referred to as the interaction contrast ratio (ICR) without exposure and attribute proportion due to an interaction (AP) with both exposures. The specific analysis methods are as follows: RERI = RRA1Bl-RRA1B0-RRA0B1+1; ②AP = RERI/RRAlBl; ③S = (RRAlBl-1)/[(RRA0B1-1)+ (RRA0B0-1)], A1 and A0 indicate the exposure and non-exposure of this factor respectively, while B1 and B0 are the same. If there is no additive interaction between the two variables, the RERI and AP confidence intervals should all be 0, while the S confidence interval should be 1. The calculation method of interaction is based on the construction and algorithm of interaction analysis index proposed by Rothman [8, 9], Hosmer and Lemeshow [10], the evaluation index of interaction is further calculated by logistic regression model, and the confidence interval of additive interaction is estimated by introducing excel calculation table compiled by Andersson [11]. Detailed information on an additive interaction has been published elsewhere [1113]. Statistical significance was defined as two-tailed P<0.05.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was complied with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the institute review board of Shanghai Health Development Research Center. All study participants provided written informed consent before enrolling in our study. Moreover, the informed consent was obtained from parents/legal representative (LARs) for participants with no education.

Results

Characteristics

The average age of all study participants was 69 years old (mean: 69, standard deviation: 9.1), with 48.7% of them were male. Compared with people without stroke, the stroke patients were older, had lower education, higher marriage rate and longer duration of hypertension, as well as being more likely to have atrial fibrillation, dyslipidemia, family history of stroke and lack of exercise (P < 0.001). Conversly, it showed no differences in smoking, BMI, overweight or obesity, and diabetes (Table 1).

Table 1. Demographic information and clinical characteristics of study population.

Characteristics Population Stroke
n = 18724 no (n = 16699) yes (n = 2025) P*
Age (years), mean±SD 68.98 ±9.12 68.51±9.12 73.35±7.86 <0.001
Sex, n (%) 9118(48.70) 8139(48.74) 979(48.34) 0.541
Marriage status, n (%)
    Married 17551(93.74) 15695(93.99) 1856(91.7) <0.001
    Unmarried / divorced / widowed 1173(6.26) 1004(6.01) 169(8.35)
Education, n (%)
    Primary school or illiterate 9855(52.63) 8639(51.73) 1216(60.05) <0.001
    Secondary school and above 8869(47.37) 8060(48.27) 809(39.95)
Course of hypertension (years)
    0–5 9323(49.80) 8392(50.25) 931(46.0) <0.001
    6–10 6497(34.70) 5773(34.57) 724(35.8)
    >10 2904(15.51) 2534(15.17) 370(18.3)
BMI (kg/m2), mean±SD 24.93±4.61 24.92±4.71 24.72±3.53 0.071
Smoking, n (%)
    yes 5677(30.32) 5073(30.38) 604(29.83) 0.414
    no 13039(69.64) 11626(69.62) 1421(70.17)
Taking anti-hypertensive drugs, n (%) 17893(95.56) 15953(95.53) 1940(95.80) 0.604
Atrial fibrillation, n (%) 288(1.54) 218(1.31) 70(3.46) <0.001
Overweight or obese, n (%) 6200(33.11) 5553(33.25) 647(31.95) 0.115
Dyslipidemia, n (%) 5798(31.96) 5084(30.44) 714(35.26) <0.001
Lack of exercise, n (%) 10811(57.74) 9435(56.50) 1376(67.95) <0.001
Diabetes, n (%) 7066(37.74) 6328(37.89) 738(36.44) 0.207
Family history of stroke, n (%) 391(2.08) 293(1.75) 98(4.84) <0.001

Prevalence of stroke

A total of 18,724 hypertensive patients were screened, with 2,025 of them having a stroke. The prevalence of stroke among people aged 60 and over was 10.8% (10.41%-11.23%). The prevalence of stroke was 7.0% in those aged 60–69, 12.7% for those aged 70–79, and 17.9% for those aged 80 and up, respectively. There is no gender difference in prevalence.

Influencing factors of stroke

Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that dyslipidemia (OR:1.31,95%CI:1.19–1.45), lack of exercise (OR:1.91,95%CI:1.32–2.76), atrial fibrillation [OR:1.49,95%CI:1.35–1.65), family history of stroke (OR:2.18,95%CI:1.6–2.88) were significantly related to prevalence of stroke in hypertensive population over 60 years old, even after adjusting for multiple factors (model 2), the results were still stable (Table 2).

Table 2. Multivariable logistic regression analysis for influencing factors of stroke.

Characteristics Total population Number of stroke patients Odds Ratio (95% confidence interval)
Model 1 Model 2
Course of hypertension (years)
    0–5 9323 931 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    6–10 6497 724 1.09 (0.98–1.21) 1.08 (0.97–1.20)
    >10 2904 370 1.00 (0.87–1.15) 1.00 (0.88–1.16)
Smoking
    no 13047 1421 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    yes 5677 604 1.16 (1.01–1.32)* 1.12 (0.97–1.29)
Marriage status
    Married 17551 1856 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Unmarried / divorced / widowed 1173 169 1.00 (0.84–1.19) 0.95 (0.82–1.10)
Taking antihypertensive drugs
    No 831 85 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 17893 1940 0.92 (0.73–1.16) 0.94 (0.75–1.18)
Atrial fibrillation
    No 18436 1955 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 288 70 2.36 (1.79–3.12)** 2.18 (1.6–2.88)**
Diabetes
    No 11658 1287 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 7066 738 0.98 (0.89–1.08) 0.99 (0.90–1.09)
Overweight or obese
    No 12524 1378 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 6200 647 1.02(0.93–1.13) 1.00 (0.90–1.10)
Dyslipidemia
    No 12926 1311 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 5798 714 1.35 (1.23–1.49)** 1.31 (1.19–1.45)**
Lack of exercise
    No 7913 649 1.00 (Reference) 1.00 (Reference)
    Yes 10811 1376 1.55(1.41–1.71)** 1.49 (1.35–1.65)**
Family history of stroke
    No 18333 1927 1.00 (Reference) 1.00(Reference)
    Yes 391 98 3.44 (2.71–4.36)** 3.47 (2.76–4.37)**

Model 1: adjusted for age and gender; Model 2 adjusted for age, gender, education level, duration of hypertension, antihypertensive drugs, smoking, lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, diabetes, dyslipidemia, overweight or obesity, atrial fibrillation, and family history of stroke

*P<0.05

**P<0.001.

When analyzing the relationship between the number of factors and stroke, the results showed that compared with the population without these factors, the multi factor adjusted odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval of stroke was 1.89 (1.67–2.13), 2.15 (1.86–2.47) and 6.84 (4.90–9.55), respectively. There was a linear trend relationship between the risk and the number of coexisting influencing factors (linear trend P < 0.001) (Table 3).

Table 3. The analysis result of the relationship between the number of influencing factors and the prevalence of stroke.

Number of influencing factors Total number of subjects Number of stroke patients Odds Ratio (95% confidence interval)
Model 1 Model 2
continuous variable (0–4) 18723 2025 1.50 (1.41–1.60)** 1.49 (1.40–1.59)**
Categorical variable
    0 5662 369 1.00 (reference) 1.00 (reference)
    1 9017 1110 1.91 (1.69–2.16) 1.89 (1.67–2.13)
    2 3864 492 2.21 (1.92–2.54)* 2.15 (1.86–2.47)*
    ≥3 180 54 7.02 (5.05–9.76)** 6.84 (4.90–9.55)**
Linear trend test     <0.001 <0.001

Model 1: adjusted for age and gender; Model 2: adjusted for age, gender, education level, duration of hypertension, antihypertensive drugs, smoking, lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, diabetes, dyslipidemia, overweight or obesity, atrial fibrillation, and family history of stroke

*P<0.05

**P<0.001.

Interaction of influencing factors

After adjusting for multiple factors, family history of stroke was found to have an additive interaction with lack of exercise, and dyslipidemia (Table 4). The result of additive interaction analysis showed that the prevalence of stroke caused by the interaction between family history of stroke and lack of exercise is 1.08 times higher than other unknown factors and contributed to 19% of the overall effect with interaction index (SI) 1.31 (1.02–1.69). Likewise, the prevalence of stroke caused by a combination of dyslipidemia and a family history of stroke is 0.87 times higher than that caused by unknown causes. The interaction contributed to 23% of the overall effects of these two variables, and the interaction index (SI) is 1.46. (1.04–2.05).

Table 4. Analysis of additive interaction of influencing factors of stroke.

Factor 1 Factor 2 AOR※(95% CI) RERI AP SI
Lack of exercise Family history of stroke 1.08 0.19 1.31
(0.22–1.94) (0.04–0.35) (1.02–1.69)
No No 1.00
Yes No 1.80(1.11–2.92)
No Yes 3.68(2.68–5.04)
Yes Yes 5.55(4.02–7.67)
Dyslipidemia Family history of stroke 0.87 0.23 1.46
(0.41–1.33) (0.08–0.38) (1.04–2.05)
No No 1.00
Yes No 1.01(0.63–1.62)
No Yes 2.88(1.99–4.18)
Yes Yes 3.76(2.61–5.42)

AOR: adjusted odds ratio; RERI: the relative risk due to interaction; AP: the attributable proportion; S: the synergy index

※Adjusted for age, gender, education, marital status, smoking, overweight or obese, taking antihypertensive drugs, duration of hypertension.

Discussion

In this population-based study, we found that the prevalence and OR (95% confidence interval) of stroke in the elderly with hypertension in Jiading District, Shanghai was 10.82% (10.41%-11.23%). The prevalence of stroke was significantly associated with dyslipidemia, atrial fibrillation, lack of exercise and family history of stroke. The linear trend test showed the increase in the number of coexisting influence factors with the high risk of stroke. We discovered that there could be an additive association between family history of stroke and lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, and atrial fibrillation when we investigated at the interaction between the four significant influencing factors mentioned above. We found that the prevalence of stroke in the elderly with hypertension in Jiading District of Shanghai was 10.8%, which was remarkably similar to the findings of another rural survey in China [14]. This result was about 2–3 times higher than the standardized prevalence of stroke in general population reported by other Chinese studies [15, 16], and much higher than the stroke prevalence of people with diabetes and people with atrial fibrillation reported in other Asian studies [17, 18].

Identifying the influencing factors of stroke that can be changed in people with hypertension can help prevent the occurrence of stroke. Our study found that dyslipidemia, atrial fibrillation, lack of exercise, and family history of stroke were independent influencing factors for stroke in hypertensive population. Lack of exercise and dyslipidemia have also been shown to be significantly related to the prevalence of stroke in hypertensive patients in some studies, which is consistent with our findings [19, 20]. In addition, several studies have reported that alcohol consumption, excessive salt intake, uncontrolled blood pressure, high carotid artery diameter and plaque may all be risk factors for stroke in hypertensive population [1922]. Whereas, another study reported that high fasting blood glucose is an risk factor for stroke in hypertensive population [19], which contradicts our findings. The contradictory results may be due to different locations of investigation. The blood glucose control of diabetic patients in this investigation is relatively good, so we did not find that diabetes are significantly related to stroke. Dyslipidemia, atrial fibrillation, and lack of exercise were also risk factors for stroke in people with type 2 diabetes, according to a cohort study in Korea [23], suggesting that these three factors could be common risk factors for stroke in people with hypertension and people with diabetes.

We found that the number of coexisting influencing factors in hypertensive population is directly proportional with the risk of stroke, which is appropriate with other studies [24]. This study also reported that the increase of stroke risk factors is independently associated with the increase of long-term mortality. Some large prospective cohort studies have found that the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease increased with the number of coexisting risk factors [25, 26]. In some regions, people with three or more influencing factors are classified as high-risk groups, and targeted interventions are implemented. A latest study shows that there is a linear association between the number of cardiovascular influencing factors and the risk of asymptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis, and asymptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic stenosis is a major cause of stroke, which may be one of the explanations for the linear relationship between the number of stroke influencing factors and the occurrence of stroke [27]. Moreover, our study found that there was additive interaction between family history of stroke and lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, and atrial fibrillation in hypertensive population indicating there may be a biological relationship between family history of stroke and these three factors. There are currently few studies examining the interaction between the important influencing factors of stroke, so we believe that further research is required to better understand the interaction between the influencing factors of stroke and their mechanisms. More importantly, it suggests that the primary prevention of stroke in hypertensive population should focus on those with family history of stroke accompanied by lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, and atrial fibrillation.

There are several limitations to this study. Firstly, since this is a cross-sectional study, the causal relationship between these factors and stroke cannot be determined. Second, variables such as alcohol consumption, dietary patterns, blood pressure control, and carotid artery condition were not included in our research, which are all important factors affecting stroke and may have influenced our results. Finally, we were unable to differentiate between ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes due to our inability to accurately determine the form of stroke, which may have impacted our findings. Therefore, we also expect to have large, high-quality prospective cohort studies to explore and verify the influencing factors of stroke in hypertensive population.

Conclusion

The prevalence of stroke was high in hypertensive population aged 60 and above. Dyslipidemia, lack of exercise, atrial fibrillation and family history of stroke were significantly associated with stroke in hypertensive population, especially when multiple influence factors coexisting, and family history of stroke coexisting with other significant risk factors. These results show that the risk of stroke in different groups is quite varied. The primary intervention of stroke should focus on those who have multiple influencing factors or the interaction of accompanying factors, which may more effectively prevent or delay the process of stroke in hypertensive population.

Supporting information

S1 Dataset

(XLS)

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding Statement

This work was supported by Outstanding Academic Leader Program and the Outstanding Young Medical Personnel Training Program of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (grant no. 2018YQ51,to Fen Li) and National Natural Science Funds of China‘Empirical Study on Evaluation 430 of Integrated Stroke Prevention and Treatment System Based on Real World Data’ (Grant No. 43172004138).

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Decision Letter 0

Y Zhan

5 Feb 2021

PONE-D-20-40953

Analysis of prevalence and risk factors of stroke in elderly hypertensive patients Based on the screening plan for the high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District, Shanghai

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 18 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Yiqiang Zhan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

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- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ene.14144

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In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: No

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In this population-based cross-sectional study, the authors characterized the prevalence of stroke among hypertensive patients aged 60+ and explored the relationships between stroke and a wide range of demographic, lifestyle and clinical variables. The main strengths include the sample size of study population, richness of studied risk factors, and the statistical analysis where potential interaction among stroke-associated variables was tested. However, there are also limitations in study design, analysis and result discussion, as specified below.

1. Introduction: motivation of the study was not clearly explained.

2. Materials and Methods: A subtitle "Study design" should be included first thing first.

2.1 Study population: I suggest the authors to include a flowchart and explicitly explain the changes of Ns in each step. For instance, what does it mean by "26174 hypertension (HT) patients have been filed in the area" (line 77), it is astonishing to see only 26k hypertensive patients in Jiading if the analyzed database covered "all the diagnosed chronic disease patients in the area". Why only 21,902/26,174 patients were screened for stroke? Is age >=60 the only inclusion criteria when selecting 18,724 HT patients for final analysis?

2.2 Definitions: a) The authors might wish to separately define the outcome variable and the explanatory variables. b) Please avoid being ambiguous or non-informative in definition (e.g. "The ECG showed atrial fibrillation" in line 95). c) What is the rationale for defining 'lack of exercise' as it was presented? d) Definition for education and its rationale? And most importantly, e) I assume all data were collected cross-sectionally, but 'risk factors' (implying temporality) were used throughout the text. Please clarify.

2.3 Statistics: in line 121, what is 'Baseline'? Line 122, it should be 'multivariable logistic models'. Line 124, it is unclear what 'load' is and how it was assessed. In addition, the section for interaction calculation is unclear.

3. Results

3.1 Characteristics: A minor suggestion to use consistent term, say 'study population', when referring to the analyzed study participants. Throughout the text, particularly in Tables, please uniform the rounding rules and reporting of p-values (sometimes full results, sometimes above/below .05 etc.). Again, in title of Table 1, what is 'Baseline'?

3.2 Prevalence of stroke: Please revise "There was no gender difference between men and women". It is also confusing to use 'different population' in title for Table 2, consider population strata or alike.

3.3 Risk factors of stroke: a) Why not use BMI instead of binary variable obesity? b) Why smoking was adjusted as binary variable while it was defined as active smoker and quitter? c) Why education was not adjusted in either model? d) Was there correlation among included explanatory variables, i.e. between BMI, exercise and dyslipidemia? If yes, were they taken into consideration in model fitting and in counting number of 'risk factors'? I wonder results in Table 4 may change if dimentionality of included variables could have been reduced.

3.4 Interaction of risk factors: I suggest the authors to explain a bit more about Table 5, such as by comparing across PERI, AP and SI (not 'S').

4. Discussion and Conclusion

Overall, I appreciate the in-depth discussion of the main findings, but please shorten the discussion substantially. Besides, any conclusion about risk of stroke should be avoid given the cross-sectional design of the study. Therefore, I would prefer not to use 'risk factors' to denote the analyzed explanatory variables throughout the article either.

The manuscript should also undergo a thorough language check to minimize grammatical errors and/or typo and to further improve readability.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript aimed to describe the prevalence of stroke in elderly population with hypertension in Shanghai and explore the risk factors of stroke. With a cross-sectional design, the authors employed multivariate logistic regression model to analyze the risk factors of stroke among hypertension population.

The results section, page 12 line 141 for those without stroke, 94.0% were married, while for those with stroke 91.7% were married. But the author said stroke patients had higher marriage rate.

This manuscript is poor written. These are many typos and misuse of words. For instance,

page9 line 50, “among which are independent, but also interact with each other”,

page 10 line 87, what is ECG? Should give a full name when it occurred first time.

page 11 line 111 “immediate family”?

page 13 table 1 “secondary school?”

The titles of all the tables need to be edited, it should clear describe what will be presented in the table.

**********

6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2021 Aug 9;16(8):e0255279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255279.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


14 Jun 2021

Reviewer #1: In this population-based cross-sectional study, the authors characterized the prevalence of stroke among hypertensive patients aged 60+ and explored the relationships between stroke and a wide range of demographic, lifestyle and clinical variables. The main strengths include the sample size of study population, richness of studied risk factors, and the statistical analysis where potential interaction among stroke-associated variables was tested. However, there are also limitations in study design, analysis and result discussion, as specified below.

1. Introduction: motivation of the study was not clearly explained.

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. The detailed revisions can be found in Introduction.

2. Materials and Methods: A subtitle "Study design" should be included first thing first.

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. The subtitle "Study design" has been added in first thing first.

2.1 Study population: I suggest the authors to include a flowchart and explicitly explain the changes of Ns in each step. For instance, what does it mean by "26174 hypertension (HT) patients have been filed in the area" (line 77), it is astonishing to see only 26k hypertensive patients in Jiading if the analyzed database covered "all the diagnosed chronic disease patients in the area". Why only 21,902/26,174 patients were screened for stroke? Is age >=60 the only inclusion criteria when selecting 18,724 HT patients for final analysis?

Response: Thanks for your constructive comments. According to your questions, we described the "study population" section more accurately and detailed how the research population was obtained. The specific description is as follows. Since 2016, a comprehensive screening of all chronic patients in the Chronic Disease Management Bank of Jiading District, Shanghai has been conducted, and the general survey was performed on a community basis. The plan is mainly based on the chronic disease registration management database of the district. It registers all diagnosed chronic disease patients in the district. According to the principle of "informed, consent, and voluntary", the health department and the community strengthen publicity and guidance and implement full coverage screening for people aged over 35, meeting the inclusion criteria, and with hypertension registered in the chronic disease management database. The inclusion criteria of survey objects include: 1) permanent residents whose annual residence time is ≥6 months, and are over 35 years old; 2) clearly diagnosed as hypertension patients; 3) no contraindications related to screening; 4) patients who can sign an informed consent form by themselves or accompanied by their guardians and participate in all screening projects voluntarily. As of 2019, 26174 hypertension patients were randomly selected as survey subjects. After excluding people who are unwilling to cooperate and do not meet the inclusion criteria, we finally screened 21,902 hypertension patients, with a screening response rate of 83.69%. For these screened populations, the potential influencing factors of stroke and the occurrence of stroke were recorded. In the end, a total of 18,724 people with hypertension 60 years and older were selected as our study population. At present, the screening project is still ongoing. According to statistics, there are 155,829 hypertensive patients in the chronic disease registration management database in the district. A lot of manpower, material, and financial resources are required to achieve a comprehensive screening. Therefore, valuable information could be obtained through the investigation and analysis of the first stage to guide the follow-up screening and crowd intervention.

Besides, to include enough research populations to ensure that the results are closer to the real world, we did not adopt strict inclusion criteria, and the inclusion criteria and procedures are relatively simple and clear. Thus, flowcharts were not employed to represent our inclusion procedures. Finally, thank you much for your valuable suggestions.

2.2 Definitions: a) The authors might wish to separately define the outcome variable and the explanatory variables. b) Please avoid being ambiguous or non-informative in definition (e.g. "The ECG showed atrial fibrillation" in line 95). c) What is the rationale for defining 'lack of exercise' as it was presented? d) Definition for education and its rationale? And most importantly, e) I assume all data were collected cross-sectionally, but 'risk factors' (implying temporality) were used throughout the text. Please clarify.

Response:ThanksResponse: Thanks for your constructive comments. According to your comments, we have reviewed and revised the definitions of all research variables. For details, please see the "Definitions" section of the article. Additionally, we have also replaced all risk factors in the article with influencing factors.

2.3 Statistics: in line 121, what is 'Baseline'? Line 122, it should be 'multivariable logistic models'. Line 124, it is unclear what 'load' is and how it was assessed. In addition, the section for interaction calculation is unclear.

Response: a) Thanks for your constructive comments. Baseline characteristics refer to All characteristics, including demographic information and potential influencing factors. We apologize for using this term incorrectly, and we have corrected it.

b) Load refers to the burden of multiple factors, which was assessed by counting the number of influencing factors significantly related to an increased odds ratio of stroke (P≤0.05). The ‘load’ has the same usage in other published articles.

c) Besides, we have detailed the calculation of interaction in detail in the article. The specific method is described as follows. To evaluate the additive interaction between two factors, we used relative excess risk caused by the interaction (RERI), which was also called the interaction contrast ratio (ICR) without exposure and attributable proportion due to interaction (AP) with both exposures. The specific analysis methods are: RERI=RRA1Bl-RRA1B0-RRA0B1+1; AP=RERI/RRAlBl; S=(RRAlBl-1)/[(RRA0B1-1)+ (RRA0B0-1)]. A1 and A0 represent exposure and non-exposure of the factor, respectively, and B1 and B0 are the same. If there is no additive interaction between the two factors, the credible interval of RERI and AP should contain 0, and the credible interval of S should contain 1. The calculation method of the interaction is based on the construction and algorithm of the interaction analysis index proposed by Rothman8-9, Hosmer, and Lemeshow10 to further calculate the evaluation index of the interaction through the logistic regression model and introduce the Excel calculation table compiled by Andersson et al. 11 to estimate the confidence interval of the additive interaction. Detailed information on an additive interaction has been published 11,12,13. Statistical significance was defined as two-tailed P<0.05.

3. Results

3.1 Characteristics: A minor suggestion to use consistent term, say 'study population', when referring to the analyzed study participants. Throughout the text, particularly in Tables, please uniform the rounding rules and reporting of p-values (sometimes full results, sometimes above/below .05 etc.). Again, in title of Table 1, what is 'Baseline'?

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have used uniform terminology in the text to indicate "study population", and P values in all tables have also been modified. Baseline characteristics refer to all characteristics, including demographic information and potential influencing factors. We are sorry for misusing this term, and this error has been corrected.

3.2 Prevalence of stroke: Please revise "There was no gender difference between men and women". It is also confusing to use 'different population' in title for Table 2, consider population strata or alike.

Response: We are sorry for our carelessness. We have changed this sentence to "There is no gender difference in prevalence”. Considering your suggestions and the results of our discussion, we agree that it is not necessary to describe the prevalence of different populations in this section, because the demographic information of stroke and non-stroke populations has been compared in Table 1. In the end, this part of the content was deleted, and only the prevalence descriptions of people of different ages and genders were kept.

3.3 Risk factors of stroke: a) Why not use BMI instead of binary variable obesity? b) Why smoking was adjusted as binary variable while it was defined as active smoker and quitter? c) Why education was not adjusted in either model? d) Was there correlation among included explanatory variables, i.e. between BMI, exercise and dyslipidemia? If yes, were they taken into consideration in model fitting and in counting number of 'risk factors'? I wonder results in Table 4 may change if dimentionality of included variables could have been reduced.

Response: a) We believe that converting BMI into a binary variable of obesity is more conducive to the interpretation of results and the guidance of intervention. We also substituted BMI as a continuous variable into the analysis, and only obtain the same negative result as the obesity variable.

b): We are sorry for misdescribing the definition of smoking. We have redefined this variable in the text: Study population who smoke continuously or cumulatively for 6 months or more in a lifetime are defined as smokers.

c):We are sorry for not expressing it clearly. Only education was not adjusted in mode 1, and education was adjusted in mode.

d): Through correlation analysis, the result is obtained as follows. There was no significant correlation between BMI and lack of exercise (p-value of correlation significance = 0.057, correlation coefficient = 0.017). BMI and dyslipidemia were not significantly correlated (p-value of correlation significance= 0.306; correlation coefficient = 0.007). There is a significant correlation between lack of exercise and dyslipidemia (p-value of correlation significance=0.000).

We are sorry that we did not reduce dimensionality to get the results. We performed a collinearity diagnosis and demonstrated that the variance inflation factor (VIF) of the family history of stroke, lack of exercise, dyslipidemia, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, BMI smoking, and other variables were 1.002, 1.009, 1.002, 1.005, 1.002, and 1.033, respectively, suggesting that there is no collinearity between these variables.

3.4 Interaction of risk factors: I suggest the authors to explain a bit more about Table 5, such as by comparing across PERI, AP and SI (not 'S').

Response:ThanksResponse: Thanks for your constructive comments. We have provided more explanations of the results in Table 5, including explanations of RERI, AP, and S.

4. Discussion and Conclusion

Overall, I appreciate the in-depth discussion of the main findings, but please shorten the discussion substantially. Besides, any conclusion about risk of stroke should be avoid given the cross-sectional design of the study. Therefore, I would prefer not to use 'risk factors' to denote the analyzed explanatory variables throughout the article either.

Response: Thanks for your constructive comments. We have shortened the length of the discussion and avoided using "Risk factor" to express our results in the article.

Response: We are sorry for these grammatical errors. We have reviewed the professional language. To avoid the same mistake, we have double-checked the manuscript to ensure no such frequent mistakes in the revised version.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript aimed to describe the prevalence of stroke in elderly population with hypertension in Shanghai and explore the risk factors of stroke. With a cross-sectional design, the authors employed multivariate logistic regression model to analyze the risk factors of stroke among hypertension population.

The results section, page 12 line 141 for those without stroke, 94.0% were married, while for those with stroke 91.7% were married. But the author said stroke patients had higher marriage rate.

Response: We are sorry for our carelessness. We have corrected this error. However, we no longer describe the prevalence of populations with different demographic characteristics due to suggestions from the editor and another reviewer. We still want to thank you for your valuable suggestions.

This manuscript is poor written. These are many typos and misuse of words. For instance,page9 line 50, “among which are independent, but also interact with each other”,page 10 line 87, what is ECG? Should give a full name when it occurred first time.page 11 line 111 “immediate family”?page 13 table 1 “secondary school?”

Response:I'mResponse: We are sorry for these grammatical errors and incorrect words. We have reviewed the professional language. To avoid the same mistake, we have double-checked the manuscript to ensure no such frequent mistakes in the revised version. According to your question, we have further explained these variables in detail. For example, the following content has been added to the “definition” section of the article:

ECG refers to Electrocardiogram;

The immediate family refers to grandfather, grandmother, parents, and siblings;

secondary school and above indicate having received a complete 9-year compulsory education or higher education in China.

The titles of all the tables need to be edited, it should clear describe what will be presented in the table.

Response: Thanks for your constructive comments. We have re-edited all table titles.

Attachment

Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx

Decision Letter 1

Y Zhan

2 Jul 2021

PONE-D-20-40953R1

Analysis of prevalence and influencing factors  of stroke in elderly hypertensive patients:

Based on the screening plan for the high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District, Shanghai

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 16 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

  • A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.

  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Y Zhan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Despite the revision, the authors did not manage to clarify how the study population was established in either the methods section in the manuscript or the response letter. As a consequence, I am not sufficiently convinced about the results interpretation and conclusion.

The statistics and results are relatively fine, but technical errors are universal (i.e. there is absolutely no way to investigate "risk" of an outcome in a cross-sectional design etc.) and must be corrected carefully before publication. Besides, results presentation is still unfortunately of low quality (inconsistent use of digit etc.)

Reviewer #2: My concerns had been fully addressed. No further revisions are necessary except language editing (minor revision)

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Xiaoying Kang

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PLoS One. 2021 Aug 9;16(8):e0255279. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255279.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


9 Jul 2021

Reviewer #1: Despite the revision, the authors did not manage to clarify how the study population was established in either the methods section in the manuscript or the response letter. As a consequence, I am not sufficiently convinced about the results interpretation and conclusion.

The statistics and results are relatively fine, but technical errors are universal (i.e. there is absolutely no way to investigate "risk" of an outcome in a cross-sectional design etc.) and must be corrected carefully before publication. Besides, results presentation is still unfortunately of low quality (inconsistent use of digit etc.)

Response:We have previously explained in detail in our manuscripts and reply letters how our research population was obtained, and the details are as follows:Since 2016, a comprehensive screening of all chronic patients in the Chronic Disease Management Bank of Jiading District, Shanghai has been conducted, and the general survey was performed on a community basis. The plan is mainly based on the chronic disease registration management database of the district. It registers all diagnosed chronic disease patients in the district. According to the principle of "informed, consent, and voluntary", the health department and the community strengthen publicity and guidance and implement full coverage screening for people aged over 35, meeting the inclusion criteria, and with hypertension registered in the chronic disease management database. The inclusion criteria of survey objects include: 1) permanent residents whose annual residence time is ≥6 months, and are over 35 years old; 2) clearly diagnosed as hypertension patients; 3) no contraindications related to screening; 4) patients who can sign an informed consent form by themselves or accompanied by their guardians and participate in all screening projects voluntarily. As of 2019, 26174 hypertension patients were randomly selected as survey subjects. After excluding people who are unwilling to cooperate and do not meet the inclusion criteria, we finally screened 21,902 hypertension patients, with a screening response rate of 83.69%. For these screened populations, the potential influencing factors of stroke and the occurrence of stroke were recorded. In the end, a total of 18,724 people with hypertension 60 years and older were selected as our study population. At present, the screening project is still ongoing. According to statistics, there are 155,829 hypertensive patients in the chronic disease registration management database in the district. A lot of manpower, material, and financial resources are required to achieve a comprehensive screening. Therefore, valuable information could be obtained through the investigation and analysis of the first stage to guide the follow-up screening and crowd intervention.

In addition, I would like to thank you for your recognition of our statistics and results. In addition, as you said, our cross-sectional study has no way to get the risk of the outcome, so we use the effect index OR to describe our outcome.And we carefully checked the description of the results to avoid using RISK to describe the results. Of course, this is also one of the limitations of our research, so we explained this in the limitations section.

Finally, we carefully revised the results presentation, such as inconsistent use of digit.

Reviewer #2: My concerns had been fully addressed. No further revisions are necessary except language editing (minor revision)

Response:Thank you for your recognition of our research. We have polished and carefully reviewed the language of the manuscript.

Attachment

Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx

Decision Letter 2

Y Zhan

14 Jul 2021

Analysis of prevalence and influencing factors  of stroke in elderly hypertensive patients:

Based on the screening plan for the high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District, Shanghai

PONE-D-20-40953R2

Dear Dr. Li,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Y Zhan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Acceptance letter

Y Zhan

30 Jul 2021

PONE-D-20-40953R2

Analysis of prevalence and influencing factors of stroke in elderly hypertensive patients:Based on the screening plan for the high-risk population of stroke in Jiading District, Shanghai

Dear Dr. Li:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

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on behalf of

Dr. Y Zhan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Associated Data

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    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Dataset

    (XLS)

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx

    Attachment

    Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.


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