Pattern and factors associated with cardiovascular diseases among patients attending the cardiac center in Arar City, Northern Saudi Arabia

Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are among the main causes of premature death and hospital admission worldwide, constituting a great economic burden on health care systems. Additionally, thyroid diseases may exert a deleterious effect on the outcomes of CVD patients. Aim This study was conducted to identify the pattern and factors associated with CVD distribution and the relation with thyroid dysfunction in the study population. Methods This cross sectional study was conducted on 181 participants in the cardiac center in Arar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), from September 2016 to March 2017. A questionnaire was designed for collecting data about socio-demographic variables, smoking, types of CVD, and thyroid dysfunction among participants. Results Findings showed that 42.5% of the participants were hypertensive, 11.6% had myocardial infarction, 8.9% were ischemic and 7.2 % had arrhythmia. The majority of participants (80.6%) were euthyroid. In contrast, 13.3% of the participants had hypothyroidism and 6.1% were hyperthyroid. Most of the studied factors had no significant effect on CVD distribution while smoking showed a remarkable variation among patients with different CVD types (p=0.013). Data were analyzed by SPSS version 15, using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. Conclusion Our findings indicated the urgent need for stressing on tobacco use control measures and increasing public awareness about hazards of tobacco especially among CVD patients.