Abstract:
Background: Liver disease is one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Chronic liver
disease (CLD) is the progressive destruction and regeneration of liver tissue with subsequent necrosis that
persists for at least 6 months. The burden of liver disease is raising, due in part to the increasing prevalence of
the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hazardous 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 reasons of admission and identify complications with its associated factors of CLD
patients admitted to the medical ward of JUMC, Jimma, Southwest of Ethiopia.
Methods: A facility-based retrospective cross-sectional study design was employed. Data was collected by
reviewing of charts of CLD patients who had been admitted to the medical ward of JUMC from September 11/
2018 to September 10/2020 G.C by trained data collectors using a checklist containing the reasons of
admission, complications, and underlying causes of chronic liver disease; laboratory and imaging findings and
the condition of these patients at discharge. The collected data was entered, cleaned, and analyzed using SPSS
statistical software V20.
Result: From a total of 90 reviewed charts of patients with diagnosis of CLD, 77 (85.6%) of them were males &
and majority of these patients were in the age range of 15 - 45 years .The reasons of admission were only
ascites, encephalopathy and ascites, splenomegaly,and portal hypertension(56.7%, 30%,25.6%, &10%
respectively ) and the complications were ascites + encephalopathy (30.0%), UGIB +anemia (21.1%), ascites
(21.1%), hepatoma +splenomegaly (11.1%), splenomegaly (8.9%) and hepatocellular carcinoma (2.2%). The
overall prevalence of HBV, alcohol, HCV, herbal medication and HBV & HCV co-infection were
21.1%,17.8%,8.9%,6.7%, and 1.1% respectively but 44.4% of the study participants etiology of CLD was
unknown. In the multiple logistic regression analysis, age, sex, marital status, residence and educational status
had no statistically significant association to ascites as a complication of the CLD patients.
Conclusion and Recommendation: Chronic liver disease is the endpoint of continual liver damage by different
inciting factors. It is the most common route to hepatic failure and often ends in cirrhosis. Being of great
importance as among the common causes of admission in JUMC and it must get adequate attention on
prevention, diagnosis and management
