Evaluation of Patients Diagnosed as Having Acute Stroke in the Emergency Department: Two-year Analysis

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the etiologic, demographic, and clinical features of patients who were diagnosed as having acute stroke in the emergency department and thus, we aimed to contribute to the stroke data of our country, primarily to the data of our region. Materials and Methods: This study was retrospectively conducted on the data of 236 patients who were diagnosed as having acute stroke and admitted to the emergency department between January 1st, 2017, and December 31st, 2018. Results: Of the patients, 210 (88.9%) were diagnosed as having ischemic stroke and 26 were diagnosed as having hemorrhagic stroke (11.1%). One hundred six (44.9%) of the patients were admitted to the hospital within the first 4.5 hours, 130 (55.1%) - arrived to the hospital after 4.5 hours. Two hundred five (86.9%) patients were discharged from the hospital, and 31 (13.1%) patients died. Hypertension was found to be the most common risk factor among patients, followed by smoking. The highest number of patients was admitted during summer with a rate of 29.7%. Atrial fibrillation was found to be an independent risk factor of mortality in patients with acute stroke and increased the odds of mortality by 3.18 (p=0.008). Conclusion: Although our study reflects a large part of the stroke data of the Bolu province, it gives valuable results for the Western Black Sea region.

Keywords

• bolu
• stroke
• emergency department