Socio-demographic and ethnic differences in patients of acute coronary syndrome with or without diabetes mellitus

Introduction: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are rapidly becoming major causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, including the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Although Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and Diabetes mellitus (DM) are two important non-communicable diseases, the magnitude and the distribution of established as well as emerging risk factors for ACS have not been fully studied in the GCC countries in a large scale epidemiological context. Objective: The study aims to identify the socio-demographic and ethnic variable sin acute coronary syndrome patients with or without diabetes mellitus admitted to the Department of Cardiology of Gulf Medical College Hospital and Research Center from January 2010 to December 2013. Methods: The research is a hospital record-based descriptive study conducted at Gulf Medical College Hospital and Research Center, Ajman, UAE. The study population is all patients with acute coronary syndrome admitted to the Department of Cardiology from January 2010 to December 2013.We included all cases of ACS based on diagnosis by a medical officer. Case records with incomplete data were omitted. The data were imported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 20 for analysis. Chi-square test was performed to test the association between variables. Statistical significance was set at p≤0.05. Results: Out of the 175 ACS patients 75 (43%) were diabetic. ACS with diabetes was found in 63(84%) males while it was observed in 12 (16%) females. Higher proportion of non-Arabs had ACS with diabetes (60%) as compared to Arabs(40%). Patients aged 40-60 years had the highest proportion of ACS with DM [41(54.7%)]. Conclusion: The majority of the ACS patients were aged between 41-59 years, non-diabetic, male and non-Arab and were from South East Asia.