Abstract:
:Liver disease causes serious public health problems because of its high
prevalence worldwide and poor long-term clinical outcome, including premature deaths from
liver decompensation and its complications. The major causes of liver diseases are alcohol,
infections, autoimmune, genetic, and metabolicand malignancy. Viral hepatitis is the
predominant cause for liver disease in low and middle-income countries, while nonalcoholicfatty-liver-disease and alcohol consumption are most frequent etiologies in high-income
countries. Viral hepatitis B and C are prevalent in Ethiopia but there are only few studies done
in relation to chronic liver disease.
Objective: To assess the Clinicoepidimologic pattern of chronic liver disease among adult
patients admitted to medical ward and those on follow up at GI clinic with clinical diagnosis
chronic liver disease,JMC, Jimma, south west of Ethiopia
Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study design wasemployedby reviewing the charts of
patients admitted and on follow up at GI clinic with clinical diagnosis of chronic liver
diseasefrom April l, 2017 to April 1, 2018 GC. Out of 102 patientswith clinical diagnosis of
chronic liver disease,charts of 96 patients with complete data were reviewed. Check-list
containing Sociodemographic, clinical presentation and investigation were completed by data
collectors.Data was cleaned, coded and entered to SPSS version 20 for analysis. The result was
summarized and presented in tables and figure with descriptions.
Result: From totalof 96reviewed charts of patients with diagnosisofchronic liverdisease 66
(68.8%) were males. Most of the patients, 76(79.2%) were in the age group of 20 to 49 years
of age. The overall prevalence of HBsAg, alcohol consumption and HCV was 31.2%, 19.8% and
7.2% respectively. In about half of cases (45.8%) the cause of chronic liver disease was not
found. Almost all (97.9%) CLD patients had one or more complication that classified them as
decompensated chronic liver disease.
Conclusion and recommendation: Viral hepatitis and alcohol consumption are common
causes of chronic liver disease. Therefore, an initiative needs to be in Prevention of viral
hepatitis infections and transmission along with control of alcohol consumption need to be
strengthened in order to reduce the burden of chronic liver disease in Ethiopia.
