Cardiovascular Journal of Africa: Vol 32 No 5 (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021)

CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 32, No 5, September/October 2021 AFRICA 239 the patient population admitted to the Internal Medicine Unit. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. For this analysis and comparisons, the group of participants admitted to hospital who did not have a primary diagnosis of CVD are referred to as the non-CVD group. Results Over the seven months under review, 4 884 patients were admitted to the hospital’s Internal Medicine Unit and 1 325 participants received a primary diagnosis of CVD, giving a prevalence of 27%. The mean age of the CVD group was 60 (± 15) years, 65.5% of whom were female (Table 1). The duration of hospital stay for a CVD admission was three (IQR 1–6) days. Compared to the general non-CVD patient population, the CVD patient population was significantly older (60 ± 15 vs 43 ± 17 years, p < 0.0001), with a higher prevalence of hypertension (94.3 vs 20.1%, p < 0.0001) and diabetes mellitus (30.8 vs 12.4%, p < 0.0001) but a much lower prevalence of HIV (14.4 vs 53.9% p < 0.0001). Percentage Male Female 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Congenital heart defects Pulmonary hypertension Cardiac arrhythmia Peripartum cardiomyopathy TB pericarditis Hypertensive urgency or emergency Infective endocarditis Hypertensive heart disease in heart failure RHD ACS Stroke 23.92% 13.66% 21.43% 11.85% 4.38% 14.49% Fig. 2. Stacked bar chart of CVD diagnosis and gender. TB, tuberculosis; RHD, rheumatic heart disease; ACS, acute coronary syndrome. Percentage Male Female 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Congenital heart defects Pulmonary hypertension Cardiac arrhythmia Peripartum cardiomyopathy TB pericarditis Hypertensive urgency or emergency Infective endocarditis Hypertensive heart disease in heart failure RHD ACS Stroke 41.38% 17.24% 5.75% 29.31% Fig. 3. Stacked bar chart of percentage of CVD causes of in-hospital death by gender. TB, tuberculosis; RHD, rheumatic heart disease; ACS, acute coronary syndrome.