Early Complications of Stroke in Hospitalized Patients in Erbil

Background and objective: Medical complications are accepted to be an imperative issue after acute stroke and show potential restrictions to optimal improvement. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of acute phase complications after stroke. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between 1st August -to 31st December 2019. A convenience sample of 203 stroke patients attending Rizgary Teaching Hospital in Erbil, Iraq was taken. Patients were followed-up daily and the complications were recorded. Results: The mean age ± SD of complicated patients was 65.86 ± 15.34 years, while of uncomplicated patients was 63.0 ± 14.72 years. The results revealed that the most common complication of the stroke patients was pain (45.4%), fever (30.3%) and the least ones were urinary traction infection (0.7%) and deep vein thrombosis (0.7%). The results found that 82.4% of the female stroke patients were complicated, while 66.3% of the males were complicated and there was statistically significant association (P = 0.008) between the development of complications and gender, also the rate of complications among illiterate and primary and secondary school patients were 78.4% and 68.3%, respectively while among university patients was 44.4% and there was statistically significant association (P = 0.041) between the development of complication and the educational level of patients. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that post stroke neuro-medical complications are common as concluded in previous studies with few contrasts. The form of these complications is comparable with other setups.