Hyponatremia in Chronic Liver Disease among Patients Presenting to a Tertiary Care Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Hyponatremia is a frequent problem in chronic liver disease. To the best of our knowledge, no study of hyponatremia in chronic liver disease has been conducted in our setting. The aim of this study is to study the prevalence of hyponatremia in patients with chronic liver disease attending the outpatient department of a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 114 patients with chronic liver disease attending the out-patient department of a tertiary care hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal between November 2020 and July 2021. Ethical approval was taken from the Institutional Review Committee of Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital (Reference number: 028-077/078). Convenience sampling was done. The collected data was entered and analyzed in Microsoft Excel. Calculation of point estimate at 95% confidence interval was done along with frequency and proportion for binary data. RESULTS: Among the 114 patients with chronic liver disease studied, 47 (41.22%) (32.18-50.25 at 95% Confidence Interval) patients had hyponatremia (<130mmol/L) with mean age of 53.44±7.57years. Thirty (63.8%) patients out of these were males and 17 (36.2%) patients were females. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of hyponatremia among patients with chronic liver disease was found to be higher when compared to other similar studies.