A Comparative Study of Frequency of Atrial Fibrillation (AF) in Patients Diagnosed With Ischemic Stroke

Aim: To find frequency of atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients diagnosed with ischemic stroke. Study design: A Cross sectional descriptive study. Place and duration of study: Department of Medicine, PAF Hospital Mushaf, Sargodha from July 4, 2019 to Jan 4, 2020. Methods: In this study a total of 260 patients were taken after taking informed consent meeting inclusion criteria from Department of Medicine, PAF Hospital Mushaf, Sargodha. The informed consent was taken from patients or attendants. Basic information like, age, gender and contact details were taken of all selected subjects. After basic clinical investigation, ECG was done for all patients with 24 hours of Ischemic stroke who presented to the selected setting. Atrial fibrillation was as per operational definition. On pre designed proforma, data was collected from all patients. Results: The mean age of patients was 57.34±12.82 years with minimum and maximum age as 20 and 80 years. There were 150(57.7%) males. According to operational definition 91 (35%) cases had atrial fibrillation while other 169(65%) cases did not have atrial fibrillation. The frequency of atrial fibrillation was statistically same when stratified for age), gender, smoking, obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus. Conclusion: The frequency of atrial fibrillation was seen in 35% of the cases having ischemic stroke. Hence if atrial fibrillation is diagnosed early then ischemic stroke can be prevented.