Ectopic pregnancy at the Gambian Tertiary hospital

Abstract

Background/Aims: Ectopic pregnancy is a gynaecological emergency with significant burden of maternal mortality and morbidity in the tropics. The incidence reported in the literature range from 1:60 to 1:250 pregnancies. The aim was to determine incidence and risk factors of ectopic pregnancy in the Gambia. Methodology: A longitudinal study of ectopic pregnancy at Gambian tertiary hospital from January 2016 to April 2018. Data was collected from patients’ folders, entered into SPSS version 20 and analysed with de- scriptive statistics. The test of variation and significance was by ANOVA and Chi-square respectively with error margin set at 0.05 and confidence interval of 95%. Results: A total number of 2562 pregnancies were recorded, 43 were ectopic pregnancies. The estimated incidence was 0.2%. Majority of the patients were between 26 – 35 years (56%), primiparous (32%), heterogeneous marriage (82%) and housewives (86%). Occupation was not associated with ruptured or unruptured ectopic pregnancy (p-0.421). Low parity was associated with more ectopic pregnancy than high parity (p-0.001). The commonest clinical feature was abdominal pain (65.1%), whilst the most prominent risk factors were pelvic inflamma- tory disease (27.9%) and previous abortion (23.3%). Ectopic pregnancy was seasonal. Conclusion: The incidence rate of 0.2% was in the range reported in the literature. Low parity, previous abortion and pelvic inflammatory disease were the risk factors. Keywords: Ectopic; pregnancy; incidence; risk factors.