Patient satisfaction with hospital-based outpatient rehabilitation after stroke in Sweden and its association with life satisfaction and health-related quality of life: a longitudinal national register study.

The study is observational and cannot show that patient satisfaction caused better life satisfaction or health-related quality of life. It included only patients who received hospital-based outpatient rehabilitation, so it may not apply to patients who received inpatient care or had more severe impairments. It did not analyse specific rehabilitation content or differences between units. Response coverage varied between 62% and 98%, and decreasing response rates over time may have introduced missing data and recall bias. The authors did not have socioeconomic or disability-related data, so they could not fully explain differences in satisfaction and outcomes. Sex and age associations were inconsistent and difficult to interpret. Only the global Life Satisfaction item was analysed, not the 10 domain-specific items.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the Swedish Stroke Association, the Northern Swedish Stroke Fund, the Swedish NEURO foundation, and Region Västerbotten.

Do not conclude that making patients more satisfied will improve their life satisfaction or health-related quality of life. This was an observational register study of associations, not a test of an intervention to change satisfaction.