Pattern of pulmonary hypertension and its associated factors among patients on follow up at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2024

Background: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a heterogeneous group of diseases that leads to impaired health related quality of life and early mortality. Because of the variability of etiological factors, there is a higher prevalence of PH in developing countries like Ethiopia. Although the prevalence, morbidity and mortality associated with PH are significant in our part of the world, little is known about its epidemiology & distribution in Africa. Our study aiming at assessing the patterns of pulmonary hypertension and its associated factors has been conducted and it would be used as an input to fill this gap. Objective: To examine the pattern of pulmonary hypertension and identify associated factors in patients having follow up at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from March, 15 to June, 15 2024 G.C Methods: Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted over the period of three months from March, 15 to June 15, 2024 at SPHMMC. The collected data was entered into the version 4.7 of EpiData and imported to Statistical SPSS version 25 software for analysis. Descriptive statistics has been employed for sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents. Logistic regression was applied to identify associated factors of pulmonary hypertension. Result: A total of 152 participants were included in the study. The age ranged from 16 to 86 years. The mean (SD) age of the study participants was 49.8 ± 15.3 years. More than half of the participants were female (59.2%) and from urban areas (55.3%). Pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease was the most common form (54.6%) followed by PH due to lung disease (24.3%), Group 1 PH (19.1%), Group 5 PH with 3 cases and one patient with CTEPH. Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction was the most common etiology among Group 2 PH-LHD. 21% of the participants presented with HIV and 40.5% of patients have severe PH (PASP>70mmhg). Age, systemic arterial hypertension, history of COPD and right atrial dilation (RAD>44mm) are statistically associated with pulmonary hypertension. Conclusion: The present study showed that the prevalence of PH-LHD in our set up is relatively higher. The distribution characteristics of the disease could be related to the region-specific differences of the causative diseases.