Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD)-related admissions are on the increase in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. This study was carried out to highlight the burden, patterns and outcomes of CVD admissions in a tertiary hospital over a 16-year period in Lagos, Nigeria.
Methods: Admissions records of patients admitted into the medical wards within the study period (January 2002 to December 2017) were reviewed and relevant information pertaining to the study objectives was retrieved for analysis.
Results: There were a total of 21 369 medical admissions and 4 456 (20.8%) CVD-related admissions. A total of 3 582 medical deaths were recorded and 1 090 (30.4%) CVD-related deaths. The median age of the patients was 56.6 (46.0-68.0) years and 51.4% of these were males. Stroke, heart failure, hypertensive disease and acute coronary syndrome constituted 51.2, 36.2, 11.3 and 1.6% of all CVD admissions, respectively. There was a cumulative increase in the number of CVD admissions and deaths (p < 0.001, respectively) during the period under review.
Conclusions: CVD admissions are not only common in Nigeria, but there was also a temporal exponential increase in both the admission and death rates, most likely reflecting the epidemiological transition in Nigeria.
Keywords: CVD admissions; heart failure; stroke; temporal patterns.