Magnitude, Distribution and Associated Socio-behavioral Risk Factors of Coronary Artery Disease: A Hospital Based Study from Desert Ecology in India

Abstract

Coronary artery disease is among the leading causes of deaths and disease adjusted life years lost world wide. This is an emerging health threat in India too. Government of India has recently launched a pilot programme for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases. There is paucity of information on this disease in desert part of Rajasthan, India. Study aims to provide the initial baseline information on occurrence of this disease in district Jodhpur of Thar desert, India; an area unexplored hitherto. Retrospective descriptive epidemiological study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Jodhpur. There were 15.589 new patients admitted in hospital per 100000 populations in year 2001 for district Jodhpur. The mortality rate was 152 deaths/1000 admitted patients for year 2001. Proportion of patients who died below 50 years of age was 11.91% and acute myocardial infarction cases <40 years of age was 6.88%. Consecutive years have shown increasing trend in number of patients admitted each year with major share of patients by acute myocardial infarction and deaths caused by this. There was significantly higher proportion of female (p<0.05). Lack of information on socio-behavioural risk factors was major limitation. Coronary artery disease is an emerging problem in district Jodhpur. Patients with advanced stage of disease are reaching to the hospital with poor treatment outcome. Awareness exercises and prospective study on risk factors of coronary artery disease is required in this setting.