Prevalence of hypertension and associated risks in hospitalized patients with COVID-19: a meta-analysis of meta-analyses with 1468 studies and 1,281,510 patients

BACKGROUND: Since the COVID-19 outbreak, preliminary research has shown that some risk-associated conditions increase death and severe complications of the disease, hypertension being one of them. Thus, numerous meta-analyses have been conducted to explore this issue. Therefore, this umbrella review aims to perform a meta-analysis of the meta-analyses to estimate the prevalence and associated risks of hypertension in patients with COVID-19. METHODS: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Knowledge, Embase, and Cochrane databases were searched for the published meta-analyses up to January 1, 2022. Google Scholar, citation check, reference check, and Grey literature were also manually searched. A random-effect model approach was used for analysis. RESULTS: The overall death rate was estimated at 12%. Hypertension was present in 25% of the patients as a comorbid disease. The overall RR for death, disease severity, and the possibility of ICU admission were estimated at 1.79 [1.68–1.89 with 95% CI], 1.74 [1.66–1.83 with 95% CI], and 1.91 [1.48–2.34 with 95% CI], respectively. The meta-regression results showed that being “male” significantly increases the risk of disease severity and ICU admission. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated that hypertension is a common comorbid disease in hospitalized patients with COVID-19, which significantly increases mortality risk, the severity of the disease, and the probability of ICU admission. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: This study has been registered in PROSPERO (CRD42021231844). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13643-022-02111-2.