Relationship between the Types of Antihypertensive Drugs and COVID-19 Outcomes

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, some studies showed that control of blood pressure reduces the burden of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of antihypertensive drugs on the outcome of COVID-19.

In this cross-sectional retrospective study, we used the medical records of 129 patients with high blood pressure and COVID-19 hospitalized in hospitals affiliated with Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. The outcome of the disease such as length of stay in hospital, transfer to intensive care units, the need for ventilator, death, etc. were recorded. Data analysis was done in Stata 17. Fisher's exact test, Chi-square, Mann-Whitney, and simple logistic regression were used.

The average age of patients was 64.4±11.3 years and 44.2% had at least one underlying disease. There was no significant relationship between the type of antihypertensive drugs, underlying diseases, gender, age and the outcome of COVID-19 such as ICU admission, use of mechanical ventilation, and death (P>0.05). A significant relationship was observed between hospital length of stay and the dosage of antihypertensive drugs (P<0.01, 95% CI: -0.85, -4.47).

Antihypertensive drugs were not linked to the prognosis of hypertensive patients with COVID-19.