Prevalence and prognosis of atrial fibrillation in a hypertensive population: A prospective cohort study

Identifying risk factors for atrial fibrillation (AF) and evaluating their impact are essential to avoid the occurrence of adverse events. However, few studies to date have explored the prevalence, risk factors, and prognosis of AF in hypertensive patients. The objective of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of AF in a hypertensive population and determine the relationship between AF and all-cause mortality. At baseline, a total of 8541 Chinese patients with hypertension were enrolled from the Northeast Rural Cardiovascular Health Study. A logistic regression model was established to assess the relationship between blood pressure and AF, and Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis and multivariate Cox regression were used to explore the relationship between AF and all-cause mortality. Meanwhile, subgroup analyses illustrated the robustness of results. This study found that the overall prevalence rate of AF was 1.4% in its Chinese hypertensive population. After adjusting for the confounding factors, every standard deviation increase in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) was associated with a 37% increase in the prevalence of AF (95% confidence interval: 1.152-1.627, p < .001). Compared to hypertensive patients without AF, those with AF had an increased risk of all-cause mortality (hazard ratio = 1.866, 95% confidence interval: 1.117-3.115, p = .017) in the adjusted model. The results show that the burden of AF is quite large in rural-dwelling Chinese hypertensive patients. Focusing on the control of DBP to prevent the occurrence of AF can be helpful. Meanwhile, AF increases risk of all-cause mortality in hypertensive patients. Our results indicated a huge burden of AF. Considering that most of the risk factors of AF were unmodifiable in hypertensive individuals and given their high risk of mortality, long-term interventions, including AF education, timely screening, and widespread use of anticoagulant drugs, should be emphasized in hypertensive populations.