Abstract P142: Association Of COVID-19 With Hypertensive Crises Outcomes

Abstract

Introduction: Patients with hypertension who contracted COVID-19 had increased risk of severe disease and hospitalization compared to those without. This analysis aimed to explore the effect of a concurrent COVID-19 diagnosis on patients admitted due to a hypertensive emergency in the first nine months of the pandemic. Methods: We examined data from the 2020 National Inpatient Sample to identify patients who were admitted for hypertensive emergency. We used ICD-10 codes to distinguish between those with and without a COVID-19 diagnosis. We employed logistic and linear regression analyses and accounted for potential confounders. We deemed the results as statistically significant when the 2-tailed p-value was <0.05. Results: In 2020, there were 1,221,535 hospitalizations for a principal diagnosis of hypertensive emergency with 9590 (0.78%) involving patients with a secondary diagnosis of COVID-19. After accounting for confounding factors, patients admitted for hypertensive emergency with COVID-19 exhibited a higher rate of in-hospital mortality (aOR 3.58, 95% CI 2.94-4.35), vasopressor initiation (aOR 1.88, 95% CI 1.27-2.77), and hemodialysis initiation (aOR 1.87, 95% CI 1.65-2.12) (Figure 1). These patients had longer hospital stays (7.90 days vs. 5.23 days, p<0.001) and incurred higher overall hospital costs ($78,775 vs. $61,331, p<0.001). Conclusion: Infection with COVID-19 appeared to play a significant role in patients admitted for hypertensive emergency. As COVID-19 settles into an endemic virus, the question of how its pathophysiology may drive more complicated disease in severely hypertensive patients remains an important point of study.