Determination of the prevalence of congenital heart disease in the patients admitted to the heart clinic

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of congenital heart disease (CHD) among the patients who refferred to the heart clinic so as to make an early and correct diagnosis. Methods: In this descriptive-cross sectional study, all the patients admitted to the heart clinic who had symptoms or signs of CHD were included. The data were collected in one year based on the medical records. The main variables consisted of age, gender, history of folic acid consumption by the mother in pregnancy, clinical signs, symptoms and so on. Results: Among the 763 admitted patients, 498 were males and the rest were females. Infants were the most common group and teenagers were the least one. The most common findings for which the patients had been referred were chest pain and a murmur heard during a normal physical examination. Based on the echocardiography findings, ventricular and atrial septal defects were the most common ones. The history of folic acid consumption was negative in 168 mothers within their pregnancy. Conclusions: Since the causes and risk factors in the incidence of CHD in children are numerous, we recommended that the information about these diseases should be given to the community and strengthen the referral system, design registration system of CHD set up in the country round