Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 26, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 1, 2018 - Jun 15, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 3, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Non-communicable disease emergencies during Arbaeenia mass gathering at public hospitals in Karbala, Najaf and Babel governorates, Iraq, 2014
ABSTRACT
Background:
Arbaeenia is the largest religious mass gathering (MG) in Iraq where millions of people from Iraq and many other countries attended Karbala city, south Iraq. MGs are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality from different Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and asthma. There was a scarcity of publications that tackled MGs in Iraq.
Objective:
This study describes the NCD emergencies in the public hospitals in Karbala, Najaf and Babel governorates, Iraq, during Arbaeenia MG and assesses predisposing factors for NCD emergencies.
Methods:
The study was conducted during 27 November –16 December, 2014. Data were collected in the pre-event and during MG event from seven selected hospitals. The pre-event data was collected from ER registers and logbooks and the data on the MG event was collected daily through direct interview with patients and treating physicians using a structured questionnaire.
Results:
In total, 4,425 NCD emergencies were recorded. Of these, 80% were collected during the MG event. The NCD emergencies attended at ER hospitals during MG were severe hypertension, diabetes (hyperglycemia), IHD, asthma and pulmonary edema. The load of NCD emergencies and the daily average emergencies increased four-fold and two-fold during the MG event, respectively. Most of the NCD emergencies were treated at ER departments and few were hospitalized. Intense physical activities and poor adherence to diet and medication were risk factors for IHD, severe hypertension, and hyperglycemic diabetes emergencies. Exposure to noxious gases/fumes and recent RI were risk factors for asthma emergencies.
Conclusions:
As the pilgrims approaching their destination to Karbala city during Arbaeemia mass gathering, the hospitals on the roads experienced increased load of patients due to different NCD emergencies. Though, those hospitals should be equipped with the necessary supplies; health education to patients' pilgrims is mandatory particularly towards the factors that can exacerbate their diseases.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.