Risk Factors of Stroke among Patients Admitted to Alkhadra Hospital, Tripoli, Libya (2009-2010)

Aims: To identify the risk factors of stroke among patients admitted to Alkhadra Hospital and to study the association between modifiable risk factors, gender and the type of stroke.

Study Design: A cross sectional hospital based study.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was carried out at Alkhadra Hospital, during the period from 1st of January 2009 to 31st of January 2010.

Methodology: The study included all medical record of patients with a stroke, relevant socio demographic characteristics and medical data were collected .Data analyzed by SPSS program version 18.

Results: There were 294 patients suffering from a stroke during the study period; majority of patients were older than 60years. Mean age was 71.37± 10.07 years and 55% of study group were male. Ischemic stroke was diagnosed in 88.4% of patients and 11.6% had hemorrhagic stroke.

Hypertension was present in 76.5% of patients, 70% of patients were diabetic and 39% of them were smokers. Cholesterol level was high among 8.8% of patients, HDL level was low in 65.3%, Level of LDL was high in 11.9% and Triglyceride level was high in 10.2% of the cases. Frequency of atrial fibrillation was 3.4% among the stroke patients.

Conclusions: Ischemic stroke was the most common type. No gender difference in the majority of association with risk factors apart from high level of triglyceride and smoking which were more frequent in males than females; there was no major difference between types of stroke in relation with modifiable risk factor except with hypertension.