One-year outcomes and intervention waiting time of patients admitted with congenital heart disease at Kenyatta National Hospital, Kenya

Congenital Heart diseases (CHD) are clinically significant structural heart disease present at birth. CHD is found in 8–15 babies per 1,000 live births. Delayed diagnosis and long waiting time to intervention may lead to poor outcome. The objective was to establish the one-year post diagnosis outcome, the waiting time from diagnosis to intervention and factors associated with one-year post diagnosis mortality. This was a retrospective review of patient records for patient with CHD admitted to Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) from 1st January 2016 to December 2021. We collected data and entered it into REDCap and then analyzed Statistical analyses were performed using R Statistical Software (v4.3.0; R Core Team 2023). We reviewed 1,703 patient records for the study. At diagnosis, a majority of the patients were children aged less than one year (53.6%) with 40.8% males. At one-year post-diagnosis, the mortality rate was 36.1%. Only 69 (37%) received recommended surgical intervention within one-year with a median time 59 (10–208) days. While 44 (67%) had undergone recommended catheterization within one year with median of 95 (13.5–188.8) days. Those whose intervention was outside the country took 349 (10.8–703.8) days to get intervention. Older children and those with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) were more likely to die. Few children with CHD receive the recommended interventions. There is a long waiting time from diagnosis to intervention. Mortality for patients with CHD remains high. There are many gaps in the documentation for patients with CHD at KNH. There is need to shorten time taken from diagnosis to intervention for patients with CHD and to improve documentation for patients with CHD at KNH.