Purpose: The aim of this study was to perform a retrospective analysis of selected risk factors and their variability in a 10 years period of observation in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD).
Material and methods: We reviewed 5219 questionares of patients hospitalized at internal wards of the Internal Medicine Institute of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. Among the participants 1709 were females with mean age 56.3 +/- 7.1 and 3510 males with mean age 54.46 +/- 7.96. Multivariate logistic regression analysis of the relationship between the: analysed risk factors and the hospitalization year, age and sex of patients was used.
Results: Among all risk factors, cigarette smoking appeared most frequently (43.93% of patients) followed by arterial hypertension (32.90%), lipid disturbances (25.78%), obesity (16.26%), type 2 diabetes (13.79%), family history of IHD (8.46%), impaired glucose tolerance (5.8%), hyperuricaemia (3.62%) and type 1 diabetes (1.1%). Cigarette smoking and hyperuricaemia appeared markedly more often in men in comparison to women (p < 0.0002) in whom arterial hypertension and obesity significantly dominated (p < 0.0001).
Conclusions: During the 10-years period of observation a significant raise of arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, hyperuricaemia, type 2 diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance was found. Hovever, some positive changes such as a decrease in number of cigarette smokers and obesity among women were detected. In conclusion, the results of our study show that between 1983 and 1992 there was a domination of negative changes among the IHD risk factors. This was more pronounced in the studied group of females in comparison to males.