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Dec 13, 2016Keywords:
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Pattern of cardiovascular disease admissions in the medical wards of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital: a retrospective review
Abstract
Background: Cardiovascular disease as a leading contributor to global disease burden has shown an increase in its prevalence since the 19th century and was responsible for the global mortality of 17.5 million individuals in the year 2005. This has been linked to increasing urbanization and westernization of life style particularly in the sub-Saharan Africa. Hence, a study on the pattern and trend of cardiovascular disease admission in Port Harcourt an urban and a cosmopolitan city in Nigeria becomes important as such knowledge will influence Health care policy making and budgeting. This study is aimed at determining the frequency and the pattern of cardiovascular disease admissions in University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.
Method: A retrospective study of adult patients with diagnosis of cardiovascular disorders admitted into the medical wards of UPTH between January 2013 and December 2014 was carried out using the ward admission and discharge register.
Results: A total of 1989 patients were admitted into the medical ward over the period of this study. Patients with cardiovascular disorders were 629 constituting 31.6% of the total admission. 346(55.01%) of the study population were females with males constituting 44.99%. The ages ranged between 20 and 94 years with a mean of 56.04 for males and 55.12 for females. The pattern of CVD observed in this study were heart failure (43.1%), cerebrovascular accident (CVA) (24.3%), diabetes and its complications (15.6%), uncontrolled hypertension (14.8%), acute MI (1.6%), symptomatic bradycardia ( 0.3%), acute pericarditis (0.2%) and ventricular tachycardia (0.2%). The death rate was found to be 12.2%.
Conclusion: Heart failure and cerebrovascular accident are major causes of cardiovascular admissions in the medical wards of University of Port Teaching Hospital. Early detection, appropriate management as well as patient education will go a long way to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by this rising trend.
Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, pattern, medical admissions, UPTH
