Objective To determine the awareness of stroke symptoms and risk factors in middle and high school students at a single institution. Methods An 11-question multiple-choice stroke awareness survey was administered to students in grades 7 to 12 at City High Middle School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States. Summary statistics were calculated. Results A total of 603/608 surveys were analyzed. Only 8% of respondents correctly identified stroke as the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Half (50.1%) recognized that a stroke occurred in the brain. Sixty-seven students (11.1%) correctly identified all 11 stroke risk factors. Only 5.1% correctly selected all four correct stroke symptoms. Two-thirds (64.5%) recognized stroke as an immediate medical emergency. Slightly more than half (55.9%) knew the acronym FAST (face, arms, speech, time). Conclusions Most students in our study were unaware of all the risk factors and symptoms related to stroke. Although this study was limited because data were collected from only one school, the findings suggest a need to educate middle and high school students about stroke risk factors, symptoms and acute interventions.

Introduction: We sought to determine the awareness of stroke symptoms and risk factors in middle and high school students at a single institution. Methods: An 11 question multiple choice survey was administered to students in grades 7-12 at City High Middle School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Summary statistics were calculated for the data. Relationships between quantitative variables were assessed using the Pearson correlation coefficient. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics, Version 23 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp). Results: Characteristics of the 603 respondents are shown in Table 1. Only 8% of the respondents correctly identified stroke as the 5 th leading cause of death in the United States. Almost 50% of the students were able to identify that a stroke occurred in the brain. However, only 30.7% of the students correctly identified another name for stroke as “brain attack”. The majority (67.8%) of the respondents, correctly answered ‘false’ for pain being the most common sign of a stroke. Almost 11% of students correctly identified all 11 stroke risk factors listed. Only 5.1% correctly selected all four correct stroke symptoms (median of two symptoms answered correctly). Almost 65% of students were able to recognize stroke as an immediate medical emergency. Slightly more than half (55.9%) of respondents also knew the acronym FAST (face, arms, speech, time). There was no correlation between BMI and stroke knowledge. Conclusions: The majority of students in our study were not aware of all the risk factors and symptoms related to stroke. This study, although very limited as the data were collected only from one school, suggest a need for educating middle and high school students about stroke risk factors, symptoms, and also acute interventions. The recognition of the acronym FAST was most likely due to awareness created by the medical club members during stroke awareness month.