JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

It is essential to understand the relationship between hypertension prevalence and socioeconomic and behavioral variables during a pandemic, which should extend beyond short-term trends.

Objective:

Thus, we aimed to examine long-term trends in the prevalence of participants diagnosed with hypertension and receiving treatment for hypertension using information collected by a nationally representative survey from 2009 to 2021 and thus including data from the COVID-19 pandemic era.

Methods:

A nationwide, population-based, cross-sectional study used data collected from the South Korea Community Health Survey between 2009 and 2021. The study sample comprised 2,976,925 Korean adults over a period of 13 years. We aimed to assess the trends in the prevalence of participants diagnosed with hypertension and receiving treatment for hypertension in the national population from 2009 to 2021, with a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, using weighted linear regression models.

Results:

Among 2,843,426 Korean adults (746,721 aged 19–39 years [26.3%], 1,101,813 aged 40–59 years [38.7%], and 994,892 aged ≥60 years [35.0%]; 1,320,647 males [46.4%]), 692,950 (24.37%) and 645,173 (22.69%) were diagnosed with hypertension and received treatment for hypertension, respectively. Although the overall prevalence over the 13-year period increased, the upward slopes of patients diagnosed with hypertension and receiving treatment for hypertension decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic era compared to the pre-pandemic era (β difference for trend after vs. before the pandemic, -0.15; 95% CI, -0.15 to -0.14 and -0.17; 95% CI, -0.17 to -0.16), respectively. In particular, the slope of the prevalence during the pandemic was reversed in the subgroups of older adults (≥60 years), individuals with greater alcohol consumption (≥5 days/month), the unemployed, and the unmarried.

Conclusions:

This nationwide representative study found that the national prevalence of participants diagnosed with hypertension and receiving treatment for hypertension increased during the pre-pandemic era. However, there was a marked decrease in the slope of the pre-pandemic era compared to the pandemic era, particularly among specific subgroups at increased risk of negative outcomes. Future studies are needed to evaluate the factors associated with changes in the prevalence of hypertension during the COVID-19 pandemic.