| dc.description.abstract | Background: Uganda has a high prevalence of patients with hypertension with majority of the
patients unaware of their condition and thus likely to present late with complications such as ED.
Erectile dysfunction is common in hypertension and is associated with poor quality of life,
erratic drug adherence, and has been known to predict poor disease outcome. Out of fear of
embarrassment most patients with ED don’t report their problem to their attending physicians. In
Uganda, Medical practitioners also often don’t routinely screen for ED in part due to the lack of
awareness about the magnitude of the problem. The objectives of this study were to determine
(a) the prevalence and (b) the factors associated with ED among male hypertensive patients
attending Mulago hospital hypertension clinic.
Methods: This was a cross section study design where 330 participants were recruited from
Mulago Hospital Hypertension clinic. A structured questionnaire was used to collect
participants’ demographic, hypertension and medication history. A self-reporting questionnaire
(SRQ-20) was used to screen for depressive symptoms while the international index of erectile
function-5(IIEF-5) was used to assess for ED. The participants were screened for diabetes
mellitus/impaired glucose tolerance using HBA1C and hyperlipidaemia using Non HDLcholesterol. Using multivariate logistic regression, the factors that were independently associated
with ED were determined.
Results: The mean age of the study participants was 57±14.2 years. Most of them were known
hypertensives without DM (59.4%). More than half had hyperlipidaemia (55.8%) and 51.2% had
depressive symptoms. We found an overall prevalence of ED of 81.2% (95% CI: 76.6-85.3)
among the study participants. Slightly more than a quarter of those with ED 25.1% (83/330) had
mild ED, followed by 22.1% (73/330) who had severe ED. With multivariate logistic regression,
increasing age (AOR=1.03:95%CI: 1.0, 1.1) and depressive symptoms (AOR=5.48:95%CI: 2.7,
11.1), were independently associated with ED.
Conclusion: Erectile dysfunction is common among male hypertensive patients attending
Mulago Hospital Hypertension clinic and is independently associated with increasing age and
having depressive symptoms.
Recommendation: All adult male hypertensive patients should be screened for ED at every
hospital visit and appropriate management options recommended. | en_US |
