Demographics:
Baseline characteristics of HIV-related hospitalizations with arrhythmias are summarized in Table 2. Arrhythmias were most commonly present in patients aged 50-64 (49.3%). This is in contrast to the predominantly younger age group found in all hospitalizations. 61.2% of hospitalized HIV patients were in the 18-49 age range, and the 50-64 age group comprised 33.9% of all hospitalizations. While there was an increase in frequency of arrhythmias in all age groups, the increase in frequency was greatest in patients aged 18-49 (81% relative increase). Figure 2 illustrates the temporal trends in frequency of any arrhythmia per 100,000 HIV hospitalizations within various age groups.
The majority of arrhythmias were present in males (76.42%) compared to females (23.58%). Over the years, there was a comparable increase in the frequency of arrhythmias among both genders (138% in males and 147% in females).Arrhythmias were most frequent in patients within lowest quartile for household income (0-25thpercentile, 44.85%). Arrhythmias were less frequent with every increase in quartile for household income. Similar to all HIV hospitalizations, patients with arrhythmias were most commonly admitted non-electively (90.77%) and on weekdays rather than weekends (78.14% versus 21.86%). Most of these patients had Medicare as their primary payer (74.72%). The majority of them were admitted to teaching hospitals (69.25%). Patients with arrhythmia had a greater burden of comorbidities, as evidenced by a Deyo/Charlson score of ≥2, which was present in 81.64% of patients with any arrhythmia, compared to 72.42% found in patients with no arrhythmias (P<0.0001).
Among all comorbidities assessed, patients with any arrhythmia had a significantly greater frequency of hypertension (55.56% versus 33.94%), congestive heart failure (31.73% versus 6.03%), renal failure (29.06% versus 12.9%), chronic pulmonary disease (26.23% versus 19.16%) , CAD (24.31% versus 6.54%), diabetes mellitus (23.43% versus 13.8%), hyperlipidemia (22.22% versus 10.16%), previous myocardial infarction (8.24% versus 2.37%), previous CABG (4.23% versus 0.94%) and obesity (6.98% versus 3.86%) compared to hospitalized patients with no arrhythmias (P <0.0001 for all comorbidities) (Figure 3).