Profile of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Nigerians with Stroke

Abstract

Background: There is paucity of data on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among stroke patients in our population. This study aimed at assessing CVD risk factors amongst stroke patients compared with apparently healthy controls. Methods: This was a case-control study conducted at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital Kano. One hundred stroke subjects were consecutively recruited and compared with 100 age and sex matched controls. The CVD risk factors assessed were hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, obesity, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, socioeconomic status (SES), increased age, male gender and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status. Results: Mean age was 56.4 ± 15.8 years for cases and 54.5 ± 15.4 years for controls (p = 0.39), and 53% of the former and 52% of the latter were males (p = 0.887). The most prevalent CVD risk factor was hypertension, found in 71% of cases and 42% of the controls, (p = 0.01). All heart diseases were found in 70% of cases and 21% of controls (p Conclusion: The most frequent CVD risk factors among Nigerians with stroke were systemic hypertension, heart diseases, male sex and dyslipidemia, while HIV and other risk factors were uncommon. Thus medical attention and public enlightenment should focus on the common ones as detected in this study.