Background: There are various risk factors for the hospitalization of cardiovascular
patients in the emergency room. Air pollution is one of the risk factors for
cardiovascular diseases. This study aimed to determine the impact of air
pollutants on the hospitalization of cardiovascular patients in the emergency
room of a selected military heart hospital. Methods: This is a time-series study. we
used the data of cardiovascular patients and the data of air pollutants. We
checked the correlation of air pollutant variables with the daily number of
cardiovascular patients admitted to the emergency room with Spearman's
correlation test. Results: We evaluated 148,210 cardiovascular patients, and
53.51% were female. The number of cardiac patient admissions in the emergency
department increased annually from 2013 to 2022. Air pollutant variables showed
a rising trend between 2013 and 2022. There was a significant positive correlation
between the changes in the number of cardiovascular patients admitted to the
emergency room and the changes in CO, SO2, NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 variables.
The Poisson Regression model implemented using air pollutants predicts 3% of
the trend of changes in the number of cardiovascular patients hospitalized in the
emergency room in a significant way (0.0001). Conclusion: The results of the
present study showed that air pollutants are among the risk factors for the
hospitalization of cardiovascular patients in the emergency room. With the
increase in the concentration of CO, SO2, NO2, PM10, and PM2.5 pollutants, the
number of cardiovascular patients in the emergency department of the
investigated hospital has increased significantly.
Keywords: Cardiovascular disease, cause of hospitalization, epidemiology,
referral, COVID-19
