Epidemiological, Clinical, Therapeutic and Prognostic Profile of Patients Hospitalized for Heat Stroke in the Medical Emergency Department of the Bogodogo University Hospital Center during the Heatwave Period of 2024 from March 1 to May 30 in Burkina Faso

Introduction: Heat waves have adverse effects on people’s health, particularly heat stroke which can often be fatal. There is limited data available on this topic in Sub-Saharan Africa, therefore, the aim of our study, was to describe the epidemiological profile of patients hospitalized for heat stroke. Patients and methods: we carried out a cross-sectional study with retrospective data collection for descriptive and analytical purposes on the epidemiological, clinical and prognostic aspects. Patients aged over 15 years hospitalized for heat stroke were included. Data were collected from medical records and processed using KoboToolbox and Excel 2019 software. Categorical variables were expressed as numbers or percentages and quantitative variables as means and standard deviations or median and interquartile. The Chi-square test was used to verify the association between categorical variables, and the student t-test to compare means with a significance threshold of p ≤ 0.05. Results: During the study period, 167 patients were included, representing an incidence of 17.41%. The mean age was 72.83 years ± 10.87 with extremes ranging from 50 to 109 years. The mean core temperature was 42？C, 64？C ± 2？C, 3 with a mortality rate of 51.50% (86 cases). Clinical signs were dominated by dehydration (164 cases (98.2%)), nausea/vomiting (82 cases (49.1%)) and acute respiratory distress (74 cases (44.31%)). The main complications included acute renal failure (57 cases (34.13%)), multiple organ failure (39 cases (23.35%)), and cardio-vascular shock (26 cases (15.57%)). The comparative analysis according to mortality, age, core temperature, respiratory distress, tachycardia, and altered state of consciousness were associated factors in the death group (p < 0.05). However, in the multivariate logistic regression, only initial vital signs were statistically significant (OR = 17.3 [7.24 - 45.3], p < 0.001). Conclusion: Heat stroke mainly affects elderly people and the severity of cases is linked to very high temperatures, other neurological disorders and high mortality.