Emergency Medicine: Open Access
Open Access

Abstract

Prevalence of Cardiovascular Emergencies in Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa Ethiopia

Tsegalem Hailemariam

Background: Ethiopia demonstrates that a considerable proportion of the disease burden is due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other chronic diseases. Hence, this study tried to (a) Estimate prevalence of cardiovascular emergency in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (b) Identify the outcome of cardiovascular emergency admitted in specialized hospital. Method: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted among 205 patients admitted in Emergency room (ER) aged beyond 13 years in specialized hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All six month patient charts were selected by convenience method to fill the structured pre-tested check list. Data were entered and analyzed by using SPSS version 16 software. Result: The prevalence of cardiovascular emergency in the ER of the specialized hospital was 11% of the medical emergency admission was due to cardiac emergency in ER. The mean age of the admitted patients was 41 years out of which 55.4% were females and 44.6% were males. More than half 111(54%) patients were of Addis Ababa from the total patients of cardiovascular emergencies. Majority of the patients were presented with Rheumatic valvular heart diseases (40%), followed by hypertension (26%) and ischemic heart disease (15%), Congestive heart failure (44%) followed by stroke (22% ) and Cardiac arrest(11%). 25% of the patients died during their hospital stay. Conclusion: Rheumatic vavular heart diseases (RHD) were the principal cause of cardiac emergency. Hypertension and ischemic heart diseases was in the second and third position. The government and other sectors have to promote public awareness on the burden of RHD, high blood pressure and ischemic heart diseases. Improvement of emergency care along with lifestyle modification is essential to minimize the burden of cardiac emergencies.