• Ivan Kisuule, Emmanuel Seremba, and Magid Kagimu.
• Gastroenterology Division, Department of Medicine, Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.
• Afr Health Sci. 2023 Mar 1; 23 (1): 622630622-630.

BackgroundThere was no data on the prevalence of Gastrointestinal bleeding (GI) among patients admitted on the emergency ward at Mulago hospital. This was partly because the medical records were not adequately completed as designed.ObjectiveTo estimate the prevalence of gastrointestinal bleeding and the frequency of selected predictors of mortality on the emergency ward.MethodsThis was a chart review incorporating quality improvement methods in the process of data collection. The health care team was educated on documentation of gastrointestinal bleeding while being assessed weekly for knowledge and practice of completion of the Casualty Assessment form (CAF) from which a documented diagnosis of GI bleeding and selected predictors of mortality were looked for.ResultsOf the 1881 CAF assessed, 278 had a documented diagnosis of GI bleeding, resulting in a prevalence of 6.8%. Of the patients with GI bleeding, 14.1% had age greater than 60 years, 24.0% had a systolic blood pressure less than 100mmHg and 44.5% had a heart rate greater than 100 beats per minute.ConclusionThe prevalence of GI bleeding on the medical emergency ward of Mulago hospital is high. This calls for strategies for resuscitative management of this life-threatening medical emergency. Among the selected predictors of mortality, tachycardia was most frequent followed by hypotension. These should always be assessed in a patient with GI bleeding and resuscitative measures with blood transfusion and intravenous fluids undertaken to correct them.© 2023 Kisuule I et al.

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