Abstract P149: Prevalence, Trend And Clinical Outcomes Of Hypertensive Urgency And Emergency Before And During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Nationwide Analysis (2019 Vs. 2020)

Background: Data on the prevalence trend and clinical outcomes of hypertensive urgency and emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic remains limited. Hence, we aim to compare the prevalence of hypertensive urgency and emergency between the years 2019 and 2020 and compare the clinical outcomes between both years. Methods: We used the National Inpatient Sample (2019-2020) to obtain all patients with hypertensive urgency (ICD-10: I160) and emergency (ICD-10: I161). We excluded all patients who tested positive for COVID-19 infection. We measured the trends annually in 4 quarters. Multivariate logistic regression was used to measure the adjusted outcomes. Results: We found a total of 188,801 patients with hypertensive urgency (2019: 95,731 - 2020: 93,070) and 112,257 patients with hypertensive emergency (2019: 55,456 - 2020: 56,801). The trend in hypertensive urgency showed a significant drop in the second and fourth quarters of the year 2020 (p<0.01), Figure 1 . On multivariate logistic regression, the in-hospital mortality odds among hypertensive emergencies were higher in the year 2020 (aOR 1.08, 95%CI [1.01-1.15]) with no difference in hypertensive urgency. Other complications included hemorrhagic shock, ischemic stroke and acute kidney injury (AKI) were worse among hypertensive emergencies in the year 2020, Figure 1 . There were no differences in the length of stay in both years, regardless of the severity of hypertension. Conclusion: Hypertension urgency was less in the second and fourth quarters in the year 2020. The overall in-hospital complications were worse for hypertensive emergencies in the year 2020 including mortality, hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke and AKI.