Title : Geriatric cardiology in Nigeria: a necessary discipline?
Abstract:
Background
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for the major cause of morbidity and mortality in older adults and occurs amidst several co-morbidities and geriatric syndromes. Nigeria, with the largest growing economy in the continent is not spared by the process of aging of its population, it currently has the highest population of older adults, with a postulated exponential increase in the coming decades. Geriatric cardiology is a rapidly emerging discipline in developed countries, there is however a dearth of this essential discipline in Nigeria.
Aim: This study was aimed at evaluating the awareness of Geriatric cardiology discipline among cardiologists and geriatricians and to determine their perspective on the need for Geriatric cardiology training in Nigeria.
Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study using an on-line survey form (SurveyMonkey) via the clustered sampling method. The data was analysed using SPSS-Statistics software and results presented.
Results: This survey showed 92% of respondents to be cardiologists compared with only 8% geriatricians. More than half of the respondents lacked awareness about the concept of geriatric cardiology as a discipline, however about 83% felt it was an essential discipline. Sixty-four percent of the respondents expressed interest in receiving specialist training in geriatric cardiology of which majority were early career professionals. The responses from the survey were received from the different geo-political zones.
Conclusion: The older population accounts for a significant number of patients managed for cardiovascular diseases in Nigeria with a postulated rapid growth in the next coming years. There is a lack of awareness of this emerging discipline amongst cardiologist and geriatricians. Moreso, there is an absence of this sub-speciality in Nigeria despite interested early career professionals. The need for funding and training in this field cannot be over-emphasized.
