Neurologische Störungen

Neurologic Emergency Outcome and Associated Factors in a Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia

Abstract

Ephrem Geja, Fikru Tadesse and Bedilu Deribe

Background: Neurological disorders are an important cause of disability and death worldwide. Globally, the burden of neurological disorders has increased substantially over the past 25 years because of expanding population numbers and ageing, among that stroke is abrupt onset of neurologic deficit and attributable to focal vascular cause.

Objective: To determine the magnitude of neurologic emergency and associated factors among adult patient who visited the adult emergency department of Hawassa university compressive specialized hospital.

Method: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted among adult medical neurologic emergency patient at Hawassa Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Ethiopia.

Results: A total of 3883 medical emergency patient cases were evaluated in the ER of HUCSH. Out of which about 422 (10.8%) were presented with neurologic emergencies. Among patients with neurologic emergency, 251 (59.6%) were males. The mean age of patients was 44.58+ 19.28 years. The main clinical presentation of patients with neurologic emergency were Speech difficulty and Hemi-paresis 123 (29.1%), followed by neck stiffens 43 (10.2%). Patients with Co-morbidity were 2.3 times more likely to have unfavorable neurologic emergency treatment outcome ( AOR: 2.30 (1.39-3.80)]. Patients who stay in hospital for 3-4 days were 69% less likely to have unfavorable neurologic outcome as compared to patients who stayed for 1-2 days (AOR 0.31, 95% CI 0.16, 0.60).

Conclusion: The magnitude of one-year neurologic emergency in the study area was found to be 10.8%. During neurologic emergency, longer hospital stay is advantageous. Presence of chronic disease or comorbidity has negative impact on neurologic emergency outcome. Young patients have better neurologic emergency outcome