Objectives: The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak is a global pandemic and has caught the attention of the rheumatology fraternity, where patients are thought to be at higher risk of ...infection. We aimed to study the incidence of COVID-19 infection and depression and anxiety symptoms among patients with rheumatic disease (RD) in Hospital Selayang, Malaysia, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: A crosssectional study was conducted via phone interview using a structured questionnaire in patients with RD aged > 18 years old scheduled for clinic appointments from 4 to 28 May 2020, which coincided with the second wave of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia. The questionnaire included demographics, COVID-19 screening questions, depression and anxiety symptoms screening using questions derived from the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (GAD-2).
Results: Among the 361 patients enrolled, the majority were females (83.1%), and over half (54.3%) were ethnic Malays, 41.6% had rheumatoid arthritis, 34.6% had systemic lupus erythematosus, 12.2% had spondyloarthropathy, and only one (0.3%) patient had COVID-19 infection. The mean age of patients was 48.2 years (range: 16-80 years). The frequency of patients with depression and anxiety symptoms was 8.6% and 6.9%, respectively. Married patients reported feeling more anxious (p = 0.013), while patients with tertiary education levels reported feeling more depressed (p = 0.012).
Conclusions: The incidence of COVID-19 infection is low, probably due to the low rate of testing. Depression and anxiety symptoms reported by patients in our cohort were modest. Our findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has a
Hypertension is one of the commonest diseases worldwide. Hypertension (HTN) or high blood pressure, sometimes called arterial hypertension, is a chronic medical condition, which elevated blood ...pressure in the arteries. This forces the heart to work harder than normal to circulate blood via the blood vessels. Blood pressure is summarized by two measurements, systolic and diastolic, which depend on between beats (diastole). Normal blood pressure at rest is within the range of 100-140 mmHg systolic (top reading) high blood pressure is said to be present if it is persistently at or above 140/90 mmHg of cases are categorized as primary hypertension that means high blood pressure with no obvious underlying medical cause. Updated studies reported associations between depressive symptoms and hypertensive patients. Depression may be an independent diagnosis, it is also possible that depressive symptoms are secondary to chronic illnesses and their associated complex medication regimens, regardless of the diagnosis being primary or secondary, prior reports have demonstrated that depressive symptoms are associated with inadequate blood pressure control and complications of hypertension.
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