Characteristics of Ischemic Heart Disease in an Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Introduction: Ischemic heart disease is frequent, has different manifestation forms, and predominates among diseases leading to patient admission into emergency units and hospital admissions in general.

Objective: To deepen the knowledge of patients with ischemic heart disease in a municipal intensive care unit.

Method: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out of 528 patients who were admitted into the intensive care unit of Orlando Pantoja Tamayo General Teaching Hospital in Contramaestre Municipality, Santiago de Cuba, with a diagnosis of ischemic heart disease, from January 2016 to June of 2019. The variables used were age group, sex, diagnosis at admission, personal pathological history, hospital stay, and status at discharge. We used percentage to summarize the information, as well as the chi-square test to identify statistical association.

Results: There was a predominance of males and ages between 60-70 and 36-59 years. Acute myocardial infarction and the combination of three or more risk factors were more frequent. The highest number of deaths occurred in the first three days after admission and among patients with invasive mechanical ventilation.

Conclusions: The characteristics of cardiovascular diseases continues to be a major health concern, as long as they are appearing at increasingly earlier ages. In severe cases, mortality can occur in the first seventy-two hours.