Background: The sudden cardiac death remains a major public health problem. Several studies have reported weekly variation of this dramatic event.
Aim: The aim of this work is to determine the day-of-week variability in sudden cardiac death in northen Tunisia.
Methods: We prospectively collected clinical, socio demographic and autopsic data of victims of sudden cardiac death occurring in the northern Tunisia between october 1 st ,2010 and september 30,2012.
Results: The study population included 392 men and 108 women with a mean age of 52.27 + / - 15.8 years. Three quarters of the victims was sedentary, 57.9% were smoker and a family history of sudden death was identified in 9.8% of cases. The vast majority of deaths had occurred either in a public place (41.4%) or at home (36.6%). Ischemic heart disease was the leading cause of death with 267 cases (53.4%); however a negative autopsy was found in 13.9% of victims. The highest sudden death occurrence was on Sundays (17.8%) and the lowest on Mondays (11.4% p: 0.01).The same weekly variation was noted among both men and women , and also in victims > 60 years, a minimum of events occurred on Mondays (11.6%) and a maximum on Sundays (21.9%). In addition, we found the same peak of mortality on Sunday (18.8%) in young adults and the nadir on Monday (10.3%).
Conclusions: The present study demonstrates marked variation in the occurrence of sudden cardiac death in the northern Tunisia with peak on Sundays and nadir on Mondays. No age or gender- related differences were found in weekly variation of sudden death.