Abstract:
The in-depth epidemiology of hypertension has not been studied in Kazakhstan (KZ) yet.
We aimed to investigate the crude; age and sex standardized prevalence, incidence, and all-cause
mortality rate among hypertensive patients in Kazakhstan using a large-scale Unified National
Electronic Health System (UNEHS) for the period 2014–2019. Hypertension was defined based on the
ICD-10 codes (ICD-code: I10; I11; I12; I13). Of 1,908,419 patients, 1,186,706 (62.18%) were females and
721,713 (37.82%) were males. The majority of the patients (56.3%) were ethnic Kazakhs, 26.6% were
Russians, and 16.2% were of other ethnicities. In 2014, the crude rates of prevalence, incidence, and
mortality were 3661, 1396.1, and 33.1 per 100,000 population, respectively. The overall prevalence,
incidence, and mortality rates among hypertension patients had a gradual increase over the period
2014–2019. The sex and age adjusted rates demonstrate the same trend throughout the entire period.
We observed 71% higher risk of crude death in males comparing to females (Hazard ratio (HR):
1.71 [95%CI: 1.69–1.72]); Russian and other ethnicities had 1.56-fold (95%CI: 1.54–1.58 and 1.43-fold
(95%CI: 1.41–1.45) higher risk of all-cause death compared to Kazakhs, and the elderly group had
the highest risk of death (Hazard ratio (HR): 35.68 [95%CI: 28.11–45.31]) comparing to the younger
generation, which remained significant after adjustment to age and sex. Overall, these findings
show statistically significant lower survival probability in male patients compared to female, in
older patients compared to younger ones, and in patients of Russian and other ethnicities compared
to Kazakh.