Objective To analyze the relationship between the diurnal temperature range (DTR) and risk of ischemic stroke hospitalization.

Methods The daily inpatient data of ischemic stroke and meteorological variables during the same period in a tertiary hospital in Bengbu City from 2017 to 2019 were collected. The generalized additive model combined with distributed lag nonlinear model was adopted to quantify the impact of DTR on the admission risk of ischemic stroke.

Results The high DTR was associated with the increasing risk of ischemic stroke hospitalization, showing a nonlinear relationship. Compared with the reference level (1 ℃), the extremely high DTR (95th percentile, at 16.1 ℃) was statistically significant for the daily risk of ischemic stroke hospitalization at lag0 and lag1, and the RR value corresponding to the risk of ischemic stroke hospitalization at lag0 was the highest, at 1.19 (95%CI: 1.02 – 1.39). The cumulative effects of both also increased with the increase in the number of lag days. The results of subgroup analysis showed that elevated DTR increased the risk of hospitalization for ischemic stroke in different age groups, but no statistically significant association was observed between the two in men and people without diabetes.

Conclusions This study suggests that the impact of high DTR should be taken into account when formulating targeted preventive measures for ischemic stroke, specially for female and diabetic ischemic stroke patients.