Prevalence of Non-Communicable Disease in HIV Infected patients coming to Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Department in A Tertiary Care Centre in South India

Abstract

Introduction: AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), caused by the human immune deficiency virus (HIV), is a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition. Non-communicable diseases require long – term care and treatment as they are chronic conditions that result in lifelong health consequences. In our study we tried to evaluate the prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) among HIV patients. Methodology: This is a prospective study consisting 191 patients who were presented to the Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Department over 2 year for various HIV related acute problems. Chi-square test was used to find significance of association of qualitative variables. Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease scale (ASCVD) and Framingham risk score were used. Results: 65.45% of patients were in the age group 40-60 yrs. From the total number of HIV patients, 64.92% (123) of patients were affected by NCDs. The prevalence rate of dyslipidemia 49(25.7%) was found to be high, followed by hypertension 48(25.1%) and diabetes 36(18.8%). There is a major association (p value < 0.001) linking Framingham score and CAD and a borderline significance (p=0.093) between ASCVD score and CAD. Conclusion: The prevalence rate of non-communicable diseases among retro positive patients is high and should be screened in the same manner as done for routine patients. HIV patients presents to the Emergency room with disease related deteriorations and also with NCD associated complications. When managing in the emergency room it is always essential to think of these NCDs in HIV patients and the complication it can produce. This will help in early diagnosis, evaluate the complication in more organised manner and provide effective management. This will also provide in reducing the morbidity and mortality among such patients.