Abstract:
Background:.Electrocardiographic abnormalities are commonly seen in patients with
cerebrovascular accident. Physicians are having difficulties on interpretation of
electrocardiogram findings in patients with acute stroke as it can mimic that of myocardial
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infarction. Understanding these changes taking place in patients with acute stroke which are not
due to myocardial infarction/ischemia is very important.
Objective: To assess the electrocardiographic abnormalities and its association with discharge
outcome among patients with stroke at JUMC, Jimma, Ethiopia
Patients and methods: Hospital based prospective cross-sectional study was conducted for
all patients with stroke who visited JUMC from November –January (for 3 months).
Information on sociodemographic factors, risk factors for strokes, time between onset of stroke
to emergency departments, electrocardiographic, CT scan and laboratory data was collected from
patients chart and face to face interviewed using structured q--- prepared for this purpose.
Electrocardiogram was done for all participants. Data was checked for completeness, cleaned
and enter to epidata version 4.6 and analyzed using SPSS statistical software version 26.
Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed and
p-value less than 0.05 and 95% confidence interval was used to declare statistical significance.
Result: A total of 100 stroke patients were included in the study, from them 51% were
hemorrhagic stroke and 49% were ischemic stroke. Among these 65 (65 %) were males and
35(35%) females. Most of the patient’s age were above 40 years (82%) and known hypertensive
patients (51%).From study participant 69% were having abnormal electrocardiogram finding and
T wave inversion were the most common (29%) followed by atrial fibrillation (12%) and left
axis deviation (12% .Aspiration pneumonia (p=0.01), high admission blood pressure (P=0.03)
and abnormal electrocardiogram finding specifically sinus bradycardia P value of (P=0.011) was
associated with poor discharge outcome.
Conclusion and recommendations: High frequency of abnormal electrocardiogram
finding in patients with stroke was observed in this study.The abnormal electrocardiogram
finding was associated with poor discharge outcome which will need early detection and possible
intervention of underlying cause
