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Background: About 50% of people suffering from stroke also are affected by fatigue. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was therefore to investigate to what extent demographic and social factors are associated with stroke survivors’ experience of fatigue.

Material and Method: Data were collected in a Swedish municipality where 330 people living with stroke were identified. They had a mean age of 74.5 years and 42% of them were women. The Fatigue Assessment Scale was used to assess the severity of fatigue. A questionnaire was used to collect data on demographic factors (age, gender, and living conditions) and social factors (having returned to daily life and activities after the stroke, how much of the time the person’s problems had disturbed his/her social activities, and to what extent the person’s problems had disturbed his/her social activities). Severity of fatigue was the dependent variable in the analyses, and the demographic and social factors were independent variables. Univariate linear multiple regression analyses was performed where factors with a p-value less than 0.05 were entered into a linear multiple regression analysis.

Results: In the univariate regression analysis, demographic factors were not significantly associated with severity of fatigue (age p = 0.100, gender p = 0.334, living conditions p = 0.165). All three social factors were significantly associated with severity of fatigue (p < 0.001) and were therefore entered into the multiple regression analysis. In the multiple regression analysis, two factors remained statistically significant: people who had only partly returned to daily life and activities after the stroke (p = 0.005) and those that reported that their problems disturbed them more of the time (p = 0.003) reported more severe fatigue. The extent to which the person’s problems disturbed his/her social activities was not statistically significant in the multiple regression analysis (p = 0.577).

Conclusion: The individual’s participation in social life, both socializing and activities, can thus be seen to have a connection with fatigue, while factors such as gender, age and living situation do not. The study shows the importance of having a holistic perspective on fatigue after stroke, since the phenomenon is complex and cannot be seen to be explained solely by one factor.