Abstract:
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus. Besides of its morbidity and mortality effect, it results in majority of hypertensive
patients left untreated and exposed to uncontrolled hypertension.There were no synthesized
evidence which shows follow-up conditions of care in West Arsi zone. Therfore, we aim to
assess attendance and follow-up conditions of care among hypertensive patients.
Objective: To assess attendance and follow-up conditions of care at hypertensive follow-up
clinics among adult hypertensive patients during COVID-19 and its associated factors, at West
Arsi public health facilities from July1to 30, 2021
Methods:A health facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 423 adult
hypertensive patients in the West Arsi zone from July1to 30, 2021. Pretested and structured
interviewer-administered questionnaire Adopted from different literature was used to collect
data. Data was entered into Epi-data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis.
The collected data was cleaned and coded before analysis. Binary logistics regression was used
and those variables with P-value <0.25 in the binary analysis were considered and transferred to
multi-variable logistic regression. A value of P-value <0.05 was considered statistically
significant.
Results: Among 409 participants 29.1%(95% CI: 24.9%, 33.4%) of them had poor attendance
and follow-up conditions of care during COVID-19.Age⩾ 60 years(AOR=3.55, 95% CI: 2.09,
6.03),transportation problem(AOR=2.43, 95% CI:1.28,4.61),fear of COVID-19(AOR=3.34, 95%
CI:1.59,7.01), comorbidity(AOR=1.93, 95% CI:1.14,3.26) and physical distancing(AOR=2.43,
95% CI:1.44,4.12) were significantly associated to poor attendance and follow-up conditions of
care.
Conclusion and Recommendation:The prevalence of poor attendance and follow-up conditions
of care was 29.1%. Age, fear of COVID-19, transportation problem, comorbidity and physical
distancing were significantly associated with poor attendance and follow-up condition of care.
Joint effort should be needed to improve patients attendance and follow-up conditions of care.
