In-hospital mortality and associated factors among patients admitted with venous thromboembolism at selected public hospitals of Harar Town, Eastern Ethiopia

Background: Venous thromboembolism is the third most common cause of cardiovascular death and is responsible for more than 3 million deaths annually worldwide. Despite high rates of morbidity and mortality associated with venous thromboembolism, limited studies have been conducted on in-hospital mortality and its associated factors in Ethiopia, particularly in study settings. Objective: To assess in-hospital mortality and associated factors among patients admitted with venous thromboembolism at selected public hospitals of Harar town, Eastern Ethiopia, from 10 March 2018 to 8 March 2022. Methods: A retrospective cohort study design was conducted among 502 patients admitted with venous thromboembolism at Hiwot Fana Comprehensive Specialized Hospital and Jugal General Hospital using a simple random sampling technique. Data extraction formats were used to collect data from patient medical record cards. Then data were coded and entered into EpiData version 3.1 computer programs and exported to SPSS version 26 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate backward Cox regression analysis was used to verify the associated factors of in-hospital mortality among venous thromboembolism patients. A p-value of less than 0.05 at a 95% confidence interval was used to establish a statistically significant association. Results: A total of 502 patient medical record cards with outcome variables were included in the study. More than half of the patients 350 (69.7%) were females. Among the 502 patients who were admitted with venous thromboembolism, 8.2% (95% CI: 5.6–10.6) of patients had in-hospital mortality. DM (AHR = 4.28, 95% CI: 1.80–10.15, p = 0.001) and unfractionated heparin duration (AHR = 10.26, 95% CI: 2.45–43.01, p = 0.001) were statistically significant association with venous thromboembolism mortality. Conclusion: Approximately 8.2% of venous thromboembolism patients died in the hospital. Diabetes and heparin were independently associated with higher mortality. Therefore, it is better to give more attention to the patients co-morbid with diabetes mellitus and for unfractionated heparin treatment duration to reduce venous thromboembolism mortality.