Demographic factors, psychiatric and physical comorbidities associated with starting preexposure prophylaxis in a nationally distributed cohort

Abstract

Due to a large number of small studies and limited control for confounding, existing evidence regarding patient characteristics associated with PrEP initiation is inconsistent. We used a large electronic health record cohort to determine which demographic, physical morbidity and psychiatric conditions are associated with PrEP initiation. Eligible adult (≥18 years) patients were selected from the Optum® de-identified Electronic Health Record dataset (2010–2018). Non-HIV sexually transmitted diseases and high risk sexual behavior was used to identify patients eligible for PrEP. A fully adjusted Poisson regression model estimated the association between age, gender, race, insurance status, comorbidity index, depression, anxiety, dysthymia, severe mental illness, substance use disorder and nicotine dependence/smoking and rate of PrEP initiation. The cohort (n = 30,909) was mostly under 40 years of age (64.3%), 67.6% were female and 58.2% were White. The cumulative incidence of PrEP initiation was 1.3% (n = 408). Patients ≥60 years of age, compared to 18–29 year olds and Black compared to White patients had significantly lower rates of PrEP initiation. Anxiety disorder was significantly associated with higher rate of PrEP initiation (RR = 1.67; 95%CI:1.20–2.33) and nicotine dependence/smoking with a lower rate (RR = 0.73; 95%CI:0.54–0.97). PrEP is underutilized, and a race disparity exists in PrEP initiation. In the context of existing research, nicotine dependence/smoking is the patient characteristic most consistently associated lower rates of starting PrEP. Given the high prevalence of smoking in PrEP eligible patients, physicians may want to integrate discussions of smoking cessation in patient-provider decisions to start PrEP.