Electrocardiographic recordings of psychiatric patients attending Dawanau Psychiatric hospital, Kano-Nigera

Abstract

Psychiatric patients are often associated with electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities which may in some cases be life threatening due to the effect of anti psychotic drugs they are placed on. This study aims to establish the ECG recordings of these patients and find out if there exist abnormalities in the ECG tracings as documented in the literature. Anthropometric and clinical data were obtained from 323 patients attending Dawanau Psychiatric Hospital between April to May 2017. Result showed there were 12 (3.7%) cases of short PR interval and 15 (5%) of prolonged PR interval. Fifteen (5%) of the subjects have prolonged QTc, 16 (5%) have ST segment elevation while 8 (2.5%) have ST segment depression and 24 (7.4%) have flat T wave. The PR and QT intervals were significantly (p<0.05) lower in females compared to the males, while the corrected QT was significantly (p<0.05) lower in the males than the females. It can be concluded that mild ECG changes exist in these psychiatric patients on antipsychotic drugs, but there was no late ventricular potentials or features of Torsade de pointes.

Keywords: ECG, Antipsychotic drugs, Dawanau, Kano, Nigeria, Psychiatric Patients.