Causes of Heart Failure in Patients Admitted to Al-Yarmook Teaching Hospital During One Year (2015)

Heart failure (HF) is a clinical syndrome in which abnormalities of cardiac function are responsible for the inability of the heart to pump blood at an output sufficient to meet the requirements of metabolizing tissues. This study aims to determine the possible causes of heart failure in patients admitted to medical and coronary care unit wards of Al-Yarmook Teaching Hospital. The study was conducted in the medical wards and CCU of Al-Yarmook Teaching Hospital during the year 2015 (from January 1st till December 31st). It is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The patients were randomly selected and taken into account after the clinical diagnosis of heart failure and meeting the Framingham’s Criteria for diagnosing heart failure. Then a study form was filled with the patients’ data after having the patient’s consent. The study shows that ischemic heart diseases were the most prevalent cause of heart failure with 56.58%. Hypertensive heart disease and dilated cardiomyopathy being the second most prevalent single cause with 9.21% for each. Valvular heart disease was less prevalent with only 5.26% while anemia, diabetes and constrictive pericarditis were the least prevalent causes with only 1.23% for each. Multiple causes accounts 15.79% of the total causes of heart failure in this study. As Heart Failure is a growing health problem. Primary and secondary preventive measures should be applied and followed up by the health services to reduce incidence of heart failure. Biomarkers such as BNP and Pro-BNP are essential in diagnosis and follow up of cases with heart failure in hospital.