Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Aug 7;22(1):361.
doi: 10.1186/s12872-022-02803-6.

Outcome of life-threatening arrhythmias among patients presenting in an emergency setting at a tertiary hospital in Accra-Ghana

Alfred Doku  1   2 , Bernard Yeboah-Asiamah Asare  3   4 , Richard Osei  5 , Christian Owoo  6   7 , Robert Djagbletey  6   7 , Joseph Akamah  8 , Ernest Aniteye  5   6 , Dzifa Ahadzi  9   10
Affiliations

Outcome of life-threatening arrhythmias among patients presenting in an emergency setting at a tertiary hospital in Accra-Ghana

Alfred Doku et al. BMC Cardiovasc Disord. .

Abstract

Background: Management of life-threatening arrhythmia can be incredibly challenging in advanced health systems. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this is likely more challenging because of weak pre-hospital and in-hospital critical care systems. Little is known about life-threatening arrhythmia and their outcomes in SSA. The aim of this study was to examine the types and outcomes of arrhythmias among haemodynamically unstable patients presenting at a tertiary hospital in Accra-Ghana.

Method: This was a retrospective case series study conducted at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Accra-Ghana. Medical records of patients who presented with or developed haemodynamically unstable arrhythmias within 24h of admission from January 2018 to December 2020 were reviewed. The demographic characteristics and clinical data including outcomes of patients were collected. Descriptive statistics were used and results presented in frequency tables.

Results: A total of 42 patients with life-threatening arrhythmias were included. Haemodynamically unstable tachyarrhythmias were the most common arrhythmias found among the patients (66.7%). Approximately 52% of patients had structural heart diseases whereas 26.2% had no apparent underlying cause or predisposing factor. Cardioversion (52.4%), commonly electrical (63.6%), and transvenous pacemaker implantation (23.8%) were the common initial interventions. The majority of the patients (88.1%) survived and were discharged home.

Conclusion: Tachyarrhythmias are the most common haemodynamically unstable arrhythmias seen among patients presenting emergently in a leading tertiary hospital in Ghana. A high survival rate was observed and cannot be extrapolated to other healthcare settings in sub-Saharan Africa with limited resources to manage these clinical entities.

Keywords: Arrhythmia; Bradycardia; Emergency; Ghana; Management; Tachycardia.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report of no conflict of interest in this research.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Ministry of Health (MOH). Standard Treatment Guidelines: Arrhythmias. 2017. Seventh Edition. Accra, Ghana. GNDP. 2017; pg156.
    1. Chow GV, Marine JE, Fleg JL. Epidemiology of arrhythmias and conduction disorders in older adults. Clin Geriatr Med. 2012;28(4):539–553. doi: 10.1016/J.CGER.2012.07.003. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Goodman S, Weiss Y, Weissman C. Update on cardiac arrhythmias in the ICU. Curr Opin Crit Care. 2008;14:549–554. doi: 10.1097/MCC.0b013e32830a4c5d. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kumar S, Tedrow UB, Triedman JK. Arrhythmias in adult congenital heart disease: diagnosis and management. Cardiol Clin. 2015;33(4):571–588. doi: 10.1016/J.CCL.2015.07.007. - DOI - PubMed
    1. John R, Tedrow U, Koplan B, et al. Cariac Arrhythmia 3: Ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Lancet. 2012;380:1520–1529. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61413. - DOI - PubMed