Background: high-quality data on time of stroke onset and time of hospital arrival is required for proper evaluation of points of delay that might hinder access to medical care after the onset of stroke symptoms.

Purpose: Based on (SITS Dataset) in Egyptian stroke patients, we aimed to explore factors related to time of onset versus time of hospital arrival for acute ischemic stroke (AIS).

Material and Methods: We included 1,450 AIS patients from two stroke centers of Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. We divided the day to four quarters and evaluated relationship between different factors and time of stroke onset and time of hospital arrival. The factors included: age, sex, duration from stroke onset to hospital arrival, type of management, type of stroke (TOAST classification), National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) on admission and favorable outcome modified Rankin Scale (mRS ≤2). 

Results: Pre-hospital: highest stroke incidence was in the first and fourth quarters. There was no significant difference in the mean age, sex, type of stroke in relation to time of onset. NIHSS was significantly less in onset in third quarter of the day. Percentage of patients who received thrombolytic therapy was higher with onset in the first 2 quarters of the day (p=<0.001). In-hospital: there was no difference in percentage of patients who received thrombolytic therapy nor in outcome across 4 quarters of arrival to hospital.

Conclusion: pre-hospital factors still need adjustment to improve percentage of thrombolysis, while in-hospital factors showed consistent performance.