The prevalence and correlates of hospital admission of patients with heart failure admitted to Jimma Medical Center, Ethiopia

INTRODUCTION: Heart failure (HF) is the leading cause of hospitalization and readmission in patients with cardiovascular diseases. It is also a significant cause of mortality, morbidity and is related with impaired quality of life. This study aims to identify the factors contributing to admission, common precipitating factors and comorbidities in patients admitted with Heart Failure. Objective: to assess factors associated with hospital admission, precipitating factors and comorbidities among patients with Heart Failure Admitted to Medical Ward during the study period. METHODS: a prospective observational Cross-sectional, Hospital-based study was conducted at Jimma Medical Center, Ethiopia, from February 3rd, to March 3rd, 2023. All adult cardiac patients were enrolled following admission to the Cardiac unit and from the general medical wards for patients admitted there. Patients´ demographics, medical characteristics, laboratory values and medications were collected by face-to-face interview for each patient. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software version 26. Chi-square, bi-variate and multivariate logistic regression was used to identify correlations between variables. RESULTS: among 69 patients admitted with heart failure, male accounts for 53.6%, with age group of 45-60 predominates, comprising 43.5% of all admission. Most of the study participants were those with very low monthly income of less than 40USD (around 38 USD). More than half of the patients admitted with heart failure were those with readmission (56.5% versus 43.5%). Ischemic heart diseases (IHD) are the leading underlying causes,23 (33.3%), followed by De-novo dilated cardiomyopathy (DCMP). Community acquired pneumonia was the leading precipitating factor for admission, 38 (56.5%), while drug discontinuation is the next important factor for the admission. Hypertension was found in about a fifth of patients admitted with heart failure. CONCLUSION: coronary artery disease is the leading cause of hospitalization with heart failure. More than half of these patients were readmitted to hospital within the first year of their hospital discharge. Chest infections (community acquired Pneumonia) and medication discontinuation are the leading precipitating factors identified in the patients admitted and readmitted with the heart failure. Hypertension is the commonest co-comorbidities identified in the patients admitted with heart failure during the study periods. This may imply that there might be epidemiological changes of etiology of heart failure from infectious causes, mainly rheumatic origin, to the coronary artery diseases, which may be the result of increasing novel risk factors for the atherosclerosis, and still there may be the need to work on infection prevention and hygiene specially for patients with comorbidities to reduce risk of recurrent hospitalization with heart failure.