Frequency of New Onset Atrial Fibrillation in 24 Hours Post Acute ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Objective: To find out the frequency of new onset atrial Fibrillation in 24 hours post-acute ST elevation myocardial infarction. Study Design: Cross Sectional study. Place and Duration: Department of Cardiology, Mayo Hospital Lahore in the duration from 14th March, 2025 to 20th June, 2025. Methodology: This cross sectional study included 323 patients. After informed consent demographic details, including patient age and sex, were documented. An electrocardiogram (ECG) was initially conducted to identify ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI). Following this, all individuals were continuously monitored using ECG for a 24-hour period in the cardiology department to observe the onset of atrial fibrillation (AF). Troponin-T testing was performed to confirm the diagnosis of acute STEMI. SPSS version 25.0 was used to analyze the data. To evaluate the association between new onset atrial fibrillation (AF) and various clinical and demographic factors, the Chi-square test was used for categorical variables. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 323 participants were included in this study. Among the 323 patients, 16.7% developed AF. No statistically significant association was found with gender (p = 0.498), diabetes mellitus (p = 0.081), smoking (p = 0.537), dyslipidemia (p = 0.528), or BMI (p=0.11). A significant association was found with age group (p=0.022) and hypertension (p=0.015). Conclusions: The findings of this study revealed that atrial fibrillation is a frequent complication associated with ST-elevation myocardial infarction.