Hyponatremia is one of the commonest electrolyte disturbances encountered in medical wards. Therefore, this observational study was taken up to explore the clinical profile of hyponatremia and its effect on morbidity, mortality and hospital stay. AIMS: 1. To assess the occurrence of hyponatremia in hospitalized patients. 2. To explore the clinical profile, need for treatment of symptoms, etiology and length of hospital stay. METHODS: A retrospective, observational study was carried out over 4 month duration from August 2022 to November 2022. All patients admitted over the time period, who developed hyponatremia during hospital stay were included. Based on the severity of hyponatremia , patients were divided into 3 groupsmild/moderate/severe. The underlying cause of hyponatremia was analysed and association between hyponatremia and morbidity/ length of hospital stay was explored. RESULTS: Our study included a total of 46 patients, out of which 24 patients were female and 22 male. Out of 46 in-hospital patients in our study, 35 patients(76.1%) had mild hyponatremia and 11 patients( 23.9%) had moderate hyponatremia.Out of all the symptomatic patients, 14 patients (63.6%) needed correction of hyponatremia while 2 patients did not require correction. Among patients with mild hyponatremia , 7 patients were given oral correction, 2 were given IV correction. Among patients with moderate hyponatremia, 6 patients were given oral correction, 5 patients were given IV correction. Sepsis was found to be the leading cause of in-hospital hyponatremia, seen in 17.4% of individuals. Average length of hospital stay was found to be between 6-10 days while patients were being treated for hyponatremia along with their primary disorder.41.3% individuals were discharged in less than 5 days. 2 individuals had >10 days of hospital stay. CONCLUSION: Hyponatremia is a common complication in hospitalized patients and given the correlation between the degree of hyponatremia and prognosis, the early and accurate identification and treatment of this condition can reduce the associated morbidity, mortality and length of hospital stay

Keywords : Hyponatremia, Elderly, Sepsis