History and Objectives: Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is the third most common cause of death after cardiac and malignant diseases in developed countries, while in developing countries, CVA is the second only after cardiac diseases. More than 50% of patients with CVA have arterial hypertension. CVA is two to six times more common in diabetics than non-diabetics and the mortality rate is twice in diabetics compared with non-diabetic individuals. Due to the importance of hypertension and diabetes and the unknown prognosis of patients with CVA in Kashan, this study was performed in 1375 and 1376 in order to define the short and intermediate-term prognosis of patients with CVA.

Materials and Methods: This study was performed by descriptive method on all hospitalized patients with CVA at the ward of internal medicine of Shaheed Beheshti hospital and patients referring to private clinic as outpatients in 1375 and 1376. Data including history of diabetes, hypertension, speech disorders, level of consciousness, motor disturbance, type of infarction, age and sex of the patients were collected at the time of diagnosis, ten days after diagnosis or on discharge and finally three months later. The outcome was considered as complete improvement, partial improvement or death.

Results: From the 410 patients under study, 310 individuals had hypertension, 60 were diabetic and 40 patients had neither hypertension nor diabetes. Short-term prognosis is poor in patients with hypertension as the rate of complete improvement increases by fourfold in short-term and by threefold in intermediate-term. Short-term prognosis is also poor in diabetics as the chance of complete improvement in short and intermediate-term increases by twofold and threefold in non-diabetic, respectively.

Conclusion: Short and intermediate-term prognosis were worse in hypertensive and diabetic patients than non-hypertensive and non-diabetic individuals. Therefore further study prevention and complete treatment of diabetic and hypertensive patients can significantly reduce the risk of CVA and its consequent complications.