While a greater proportion of strokes are due to subarachnoid hemorrhage and intracranial hemorrhage in young adults (40-55%) compared to the general stroke population (15-20%), cerebral infarction is still most common. 2 Diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart disease, current smoking, and long-term heavy alcohol consumption are major risk factors for stroke in young adults as in elder population. 5 It is important to identify ABSTRACT Background: Stroke is one of the important causes of morbidity, mortality, and disability worldwide. This disease/ disability happening in the younger age group add to the social burden. Young stroke can have devastating consequences with respect to quality of life, the ability to work, plan or shoulder the responsibility of a family, and participate in social life. Although the number of young stroke is lesser than stroke among the elderly, the total number of years that young stroke patients live with the consequences of stroke exceeds that of older stroke survivors due to far longer survival. The issue of stroke in young in India has long been of interest to neurologists in the country. This study was done to know the factors leading to stroke in young and outcome of these cases in a tertiary care hospital. Methods: A hospital based, cross sectional study consisting of all stroke cases admitted in SDM College of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Dharwad, Karnataka for a period of one year. Results: Out of 236 stroke cases, 52 (22%) were <45 years of age. 80.8% of them were in the age group of 30-45 years. Overweight and obesity (63.4%) was the most common risk factor followed by Hypertension (50%) and cigarette& tobacco use (40.3%). Patients with family history of stroke had higher chances of having stroke at younger age (13.5%) compared to older age group (p value=0.0299). Mortality rate was found to be 11.5%. Conclusions: There was predominance of traditional risk factors in young strokes. This highlights the needs for aggressive management of these risk factors.

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