Seasonality in Mortality in a Cardiology Department: A Five-Year Analysis in 500 Patients

Background: Previous studies have indicated that cardiovascular mortality follows a seasonal trend. The aim of this work was to determine the evolution of mortality throughout the year in a cardiology department. Methods: All admissions and deaths occurring in our Cardiology Department over a 5-year period (2013-2017) were recorded retrospectively. Results: From a total of 17,829 hospital admissions, 500 patients died (2.8%, 0.3 patients/day). The mean age of deceased patients was 74.2 +/- 13.1 years, and 186 (37.2%) were women. Mortality ranged from 0.17 deaths/day in August to 0.40 deaths/day in February (p = 0.03), and from 0.20 deaths/day in summer to 0.36 deaths/day in winter (p = 0.001). There was also a trend towards a variation in hospitalizations, with a peak in January (10.5 admissions/day) and the lowest figure in August (7.0 admissions/day), p = 0.047. We found no significant seasonal trend regarding mortality rate with respect to the number of hospital admissions (p = 0.89). The most common cause of death was refractory heart failure (267 patients [65.8%]). A noncardiac cause of death was observed in 134 patients (26.8%). Conclusions: In a cardiology department, there are twice as many deaths in winter as in summer. Hospitalizations also tend to be more frequent in winter than in summer. (C) 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel