Fig. 1

Strengthening The Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) diagram illustrating the trial design and exclusion of patients from the study. Patients with suspected stroke were enrolled in the hospital after evaluation for inclusion and exclusion criteria and after informed consent had been obtained. For pseudonymization, separated data sets from the prehospital and in-hospital phases of acute stroke management were linked exclusively on the basis of information about the date of stroke, target hospital, sex, and the patient’s year of birth