Clinical Characteristics and in-Hospital Mortality in Patients with Acute Heart Failure at Dessie Referral Hospital, Northeast Ethiopia

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. An estimated 17.9 million people died from CVDs in 2019, representing 32% of all global deaths. Of these deaths, 85% were due to heart attack and stroke. Acute heart failure (AHF) is one of the most common diseases in emergency department and associated with a poor prognosis and high mortality rate. This study is aimed to assess the mortality rate of AHF patients at Dessie Referral Hospital. A retrospective cross-sectional study design was employed. All adult patients with a diagnosis of AHF who were admitted during the period January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019 were included. Data was abstracted from the medical records by trained data collectors. Bivariate and multivariate analyses logistic regression analysis was carried out to assess the association between dependent and all the independent variables. In the study, a total of 96 acute heart failure patients participated. 49 (51 %) were females. The mean age was 52.5 (SD= ±20.28) years. Two third of patients (62, 64.6%) were newly diagnosed AHF patients. The mean length of hospital stay was 5.13 days (SD = ±3.92). Acute pulmonary congestion (86, 89.58%), orthopnea (78, 81.25%) and peripheral edema (64, 66.67%) were the most common clinical presentations. The most common prior medical conditions were Myocardial infarction (19, 19.8%) and valvular heart disease (8, 8.3%). Loop diuretics were the most commonly used drugs (87, 90.63%) during admission. In-hospital mortality was found to be 22.9%. We concluded that the in-hospital mortality was very high for acute heart failure patients at Dessie referral Hospital.