Blood pressure level impacts risk of death among HIV seropositive adults in Kenya: a retrospective analysis of electronic health records.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mortality among people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is increasingly due to non-communicable causes. This has been observed mostly in developed countries and the routine care of HIV infected individuals has now expanded to include attention to cardiovascular risk factors. Cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure are often overlooked among HIV seropositive (+) individuals in sub-Saharan Africa. We aimed to determine the effect of blood pressure on mortality among HIV+ adults in Kenya. METHODS: We performed a retrospective analysis of electronic medical records of a large HIV treatment program in western Kenya between 2005 and 2010. All included individuals were HIV+. We excluded participants with AIDS, who were <16 or >80 years old, or had data out of acceptable ranges. Missing data for key covariates was addressed by inverse probability weighting. Primary outcome measures were crude mortality rate and mortality hazard ratio (HR) using Cox proportional hazards models adjusted for potential confounders including HIV stage. RESULTS: There were 49,475 (74% women) HIV+ individuals who met inclusion and exclusion criteria. Mortality rates for men and women were 3.8 and 1.8/100 person-years, respectively, and highest among those with the lowest blood pressures. Low blood pressure was associated with the highest mortality incidence rate (IR) (systolic <100 mmHg IR 5.2 [4.8-5.7]; diastolic <60 mmHg IR 9.2 [8.3-10.2]). Mortality rate among men with high systolic blood pressure without advanced HIV (3.0, 95% CI: 1.6-5.5) was higher than men with normal systolic blood pressure (1.1, 95% CI: 0.7-1.7). In weighted proportional hazards regression models, men without advanced HIV disease and systolic blood pressure ≥140 mmHg carried a higher mortality risk than normotensive men (HR: 2.39, 95% CI: 0.94-6.08). CONCLUSIONS: Although there has been little attention paid to high blood pressure among HIV+ Africans, we show that blood pressure level among HIV+ patients in Kenya is related to mortality. Low blood pressure carries the highest mortality risk. High systolic blood pressure is associated with mortality among patients whose disease is not advanced. Further investigation is needed into the cause of death for such patients.

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Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1186/1471-2334-14-284

Publication Info

Bloomfield, Gerald S, Joseph W Hogan, Alfred Keter, Thomas L Holland, Edwin Sang, Sylvester Kimaiyo and Eric J Velazquez (2014). Blood pressure level impacts risk of death among HIV seropositive adults in Kenya: a retrospective analysis of electronic health records. BMC Infect Dis, 14. p. 284. 10.1186/1471-2334-14-284 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/15037.

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Scholars@Duke

Bloomfield

Gerald Bloomfield

Associate Professor of Medicine

Gerald Bloomfield, MD, MPH, joined the faculty in Medicine and Global Health after completing his Cardiovascular Medicine fellowship training at Duke University Medical Center and Duke Clinical Research Institute. Bloomfield also completed the Duke Global Health Residency/Fellowship Pathway and a Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellowship. He received his medical education, internal medicine residency and Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. Bloomfield leads a longstanding research and capacity building program on cardiovascular global health which includes work in under-resourced communities in the US and a number of low- and middle-income country settings.

Holland

Thomas Lawrence Holland

Associate Professor of Medicine

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