Tremors and its determinants: A 7-years study at a secondary care hospital

Objective: To evaluate the cause, frequency and determinants of tremors at secondary care settings. Methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study for seven years (2002-2009) was carried out at Sindh Govt. Hospital (SGH) Liaqatabad No.10, Karachi. Sample size was 403 and sampling technique was Convenience sampling. A data collection form was designed and all essential variables were recorded regarding age, gender, residence, complaints and their duration, education status, profession, co-morbid and investigations performed. The results were analyzedusing SPSS 16.0. Results: Out of 403 patients 247 (61.5%) were males and 156 (38.5 %) were females. The mean age of the patients was 55.9 ± 14.2 years. The male to female ratio was 2: 1.6. Enhanced physiological tremor was the most frequent diagnosis. Among whom, females of 40-60 years were mostly affected. Essential tremors were mainly coarse in amplitude, whereas commonest fine tremors were diagnosed as Enhanced Physiological tremor. Conclusion: Evaluation of patients with tremors showed males to be more affected with essential tremors being the commonest encountered. Orthostatic tremor was rare. Essential tremors were diagnosed by exclusion.