Bikila Gedefa, Takele Menna, Tesfaye Berhe and Hailu Abera
Background: Stroke is becoming a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in low and middle income countries. Currently, there is limited data about stroke in Ethiopia to design a strategy to combat the disease. Objective: To assess the overall prevalence, potential risk factors and outcome of stroke admissions at St. Paul’s Teaching Referral Hospital. Patients and methods: A hospital based retrospective study was conducted at St. Paul’s Teaching Referral Hospital in April 2016. The study has focused on review of medical records of all stroke admissions to the hospital from September 1st, 2015 to August 30th, 2016. Socio-demographic information, risk factors, and treatment outcomes of patients were assessed and data were entered and analyzed using Statistical Programs for Social Sciences 23.0. Descriptive analysis and Chi-square tests were used to assess the association between sociodemographic variables, potential risk factors and treatment outcomes of patients with stroke. P-value<0.05 was considered significant. Results: A total of 163 stroke patients with a median age of 68 years and M:F ratios of 1.3:1 were analyzed. Hemorrhagic stroke was the most common type of stroke accounting for 61.3% of cases. The most commonly identified risk factors were; Hypertension (60.7%), structural heart disease (18.4%), atrial fibrillation (14.7%) and diabetes mellitus (11%). In hospital case fatality rate was 30.1% and a significant number (45.4%) of patients was discharged with neurologic deficit and the median duration of hospital stay was 11.14 days. Conclusion: In this study, hemorrhagic stroke was the most common type of stroke. Gender, stroke subtype, previous history of stroke and transient ischemic attack were the main determinants of treatment outcome.