Seasonality in Mortality in a Cardiology Department: A Five-Year Analysis in 500 Patients

<b><i>Background:</i></b> Previous studies have indicated that cardiovascular mortality follows a seasonal trend. The aim of this work was to determine the evolution of mortality throughout the year in a cardiology department. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> All admissions and deaths occurring in our Cardiology Department over a 5-year period (2013–2017) were recorded retrospectively. <b><i>Results:</i></b> From a total of 17,829 hospital admissions, 500 patients died (2.8%, 0.3 patients/day). The mean age of deceased patients was 74.2 ± 13.1 years, and 186 (37.2%) were women. Mortality ranged from 0.17 deaths/day in August to 0.40 deaths/day in February (<i>p</i> = 0.03), and from 0.20 deaths/day in summer to 0.36 deaths/day in winter (<i>p</i> = 0.001). There was also a trend towards a variation in hospitalizations, with a peak in January (10.5 admissions/day) and the lowest figure in August (7.0 admissions/day), <i>p</i> = 0.047. We found no significant seasonal trend regarding mortality rate with respect to the number of hospital admissions (<i>p</i> = 0.89). The most