Introduction:

Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent sustained tachyarrhythmia in humans and its management requires an integral approach in order to get optimal results.

Objective:

To describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients hospitalized or on surgical procedures with a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, managed in a Fourth level of Complexity clinic in Colombia.

Method:

An observational, retrospective study was conducted from records of patients hospitalized or operated with a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. The diagnosis of atrial fibrillation (ICD-10 I48X) was taken as a reference, during the years 2017 and 2018. Univariate and bivariate analysis was performed with Excel, SPSS and Epidat.

Results:

The average age of hospitalized patients was 69.81 years, with a slight predominance of males. The hospital stay was 6.62 and 5.29 days, during 2017 and 2018 respectively. Correlation was found between the days of hospital stay and the age of the patients. The most frequent comorbidities in hospitalized patients were arterial hypertension, ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 18.04 % of patients had no comorbidities. In-hospital deaths were more frequently associated with heart failure. Electrical cardioversion was the most frequent electrophysiological procedure followed by the isolation of pulmonary veins. The percentage of complications was lower in 2018 compared to 2017.

Conclusions:

There are a lower proportion of comorbidities when this series is compared with other reports. The days of hospital stay were superior to those found in the world literature.

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