Introduction and purpose: Cardiovascular diseases with an increasing trend are among the leading causes of death in developed countries. Therefore, epidemiological indices in mortality are recently highlighted. In this regard, the present study aimed to determine the epidemiology of mortality and morbidity caused by cardiovascular diseases in patients admitted to the cardiac care units of Hamadan educational-medical hospitals, Hamadan, Iran, within 2017.
Methods: This was a retrospective, descriptive cross-sectional study. The data were collected from expired patients' records which were kept for one year after their deaths in the cardiac care unit of Besat and Farshchian heart centers in Hamadan, Iran, using a census method and a researcher-made checklist. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS (version 21) using descriptive statistics.
Results: Out of the 3,446 patients admitted to the cardiac care unit, 191 patients died with the highest mortality incidences occurring in the sixth decade of life among married, urban, low-educated and low-income women with a history of hypertension and lipid disorders who did not smoke, had no family history of heart disease and diabetes. Based on the obtained results, the most prevalent underlying and cardiovascular diseases were reported as respiratory disorders (24.6%) (47) and myocardial infarction (34.6%) (66), respectively.
Conclusion: Various risk factors increase the odds of developing cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, it seems necessary to focus on education and promotion of community awareness in various ways, such as social media, in order to prevent these diseases.