Prevalence of risk factors in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in Damascus _ Syria: a retrospective cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives: This study aims to determine the prevalence of risk factors among patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage in Syrian society and the variations in their distribution according to age and gender. Methods: This study is a retrospective cross-sectional study, patients data was collected by reviewing the medical records of patients from Al-Assad University Hospital, Al-Mouwasat University Hospital, Children's University Hospital, and Damascus Hospital. Cross-tabulation tables and the Chi-square test were used to show the relationship between gender/age and the prevalence of risk factors, demonstrate statistical significance and calculate P-value. Results: From a total of 194 patients included in the study, there were 123 males, accounting for 63.4% of the patients, while there were 71 females, accounting for 36.6%. The most common risk factor among intracerebral hemorrhage patients was hypertension at 44.8% of the total patients, followed by antithrombotic use at 25.8%, smoking at 19.1%, diabetes at 15.5%, and hematological diseases making up 9.3% of the patients, whereas in age groups under 10 years, various hematological diseases were the most prevalent risk factors at 42.5%, followed by prematurity at 27.5%, and hyaline membrane disease at 15%. The study showed no statistically significant differences in the distribution of risk factors between males and females except for smoking. However, the results revealed a significant difference in the distribution of risk factors according to age for Smoking, hypertension, antithrombotic use, diabetes, arteriovenous malformation, hyaline membrane disease, hematological diseases, and prematurity(p<0.05). Conclusion: The study showed that hypertension and antithrombotic use are the most important risk factors for intracerebral hemorrhage, so controlling arterial pressure and periodic tests such as (platelet count/PT/PTT) are gold roles in preventing intracerebral hemorrhage.