CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 34, No 5, November/December 2023 310 AFRICA centres (27 articles). Antihypertensive medications were never provided free of charge to patients. Of the 30 articles included, 29 (96.6%) had at least one author affiliated to an African institution. Almost all of the articles reviewed had a first author affiliated to an African institution (93.3%), while 86.6% had a last author affiliated to an African institution. Only three articles40,41,43 had one first or last African author with an affiliation from an English-speaking institution. The patients’ characteristics are displayed in the Table 3. Among the articles reviewed, the number of patients included varied from 111 to 897, with a median by study of 294 (IQR: 192–478). Among the 10 456 patients studied overall, 40.7% (n = 4 252) were Nigerian patients. The median patient age was 58 years (IQR: 54–61). The median gender ratio (M:F) was 0.7 (IQR: 0.5–0.9). The duration of hypertension varied widely and was reported in eight articles.10,25,30,31,33,37,39,42 Severity of hypertension was reported in 14 articles. Among them, proportion of patients with hypertension grade 1, 2 and 3 was 27.5% (IQR: 17.6–30.3%), 29.4% (IQR: 29–31%) and 32.3% (IQR: 17.3–34.1%), respectively (Table 4). Among the patients’ cardiovascular risk factors, diabetes mellitus was the most common co-morbidity reported (22 articles). Cardiovascular history was the second most common cardiovascular risk factor reported (13 articles), followed by obesity (10 articles), dyslipidaemia (nine articles), renal failure (seven articles), cardiovascular family history (three articles) or sedentary lifestyle (two articles). There was large betweenstudy variability of cardiovascular risk factors associated with hypertension. The proportion of patients suffering from diabetes mellitus ranged from 3.47 to 64.3%, with a median of 18.6% (IQR: 11.2–29.1%). The proportion of patients with cardiovascular history varied from two to 100%, with a median of 9.1% (IQR: 4–21.2%). The proportion of obese patients varied from 3.1 to 36.4%, with a median of 17% (IQR: 5–21%). The proportion of patients with dyslipidaemia varied from 0.5 to 56%, with a median of 6.4% (IQR: 4.1–13.1%). Antihypertensive treatment strategies used in SSA countries and hypertension characteristics of patients are displayed in Table 4. Antihypertensive treatment strategies were described in 29 articles. There were some missing data for monotherapies Table 2. Summary of study characteristics First author Year Study design 1 Study design 2 No. of countries Country No. of centres Type of centres No. of patients Definition of hypertension Definition of severity of hypertension Drugs provided Adigun et al. 2003 Cross-sectional Prospective 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 150 Yes – No Hesse et al. 2013 – Retrospective 1 Ghana 1 Tertiary care 155 Yes – No Yusuff et al. 2004 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Out-patient tertiary care 189 Yes Yes No Yusuff et al. 2005 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Out-patient tertiary care 189 Yes Yes No Etuk et al. 2008 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 145 Yes Yes No Pillay et al. 2009 – – 1 South Africa 16 Tertiary care – – – No Rayner et al. 2009 Cross-sectional – 1 South Africa 15 Primary care 451 Yes – No Olanrewaju et al. 2010 Cross-sectional – 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 787 – – No Ganiyu et al. 2012 – Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 208 Yes Yes No Ilesanmi et al. 2012 Cross-sectional – 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 250 Yes Yes No Konin et al. 2011 Cross-sectional Prospective 1 Côte d’Ivoire - Tertiary care 144 Yes – No Kramoh et al. 2011 – Retrospective 1 Côte d’Ivoire 1 Tertiary care 854 Yes Yes No Omole et al. 2011 Cohort study Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 230 Yes Yes No Tamuno et al. 2012 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 200 Yes Yes No Ukwe et al. 2012 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Nigeria 1 Out-patient tertiary care 376 Yes Yes No Ojji et al. 2013 – – 1 Nigeria 1 Tertiary care 590 – – No Shobana et al. 2013 – Retrospective 1 Eritrea 1 Tertiary care 111 Yes Yes No Yaméogo et al. 2012 Cross-sectional – 1 Burkina Faso 1 Out-patient tertiary care 456 Yes – No Mutua et al. 2014 Cross-sectional – 1 Kenya 1 Out-patient tertiary care 452 Yes Yes No Ikama et al. 2015 Cross-sectional Prospective 1 Congo 1 Tertiary care 620 Yes – No Shukrala et al. 2015 Cross-sectional Prospective Retrospective 1 Ethiopia 1 Out-patient tertiary care 400 Yes Yes No Kika et al. 2016 Cross-sectional - 1 Democratic Republic of the Congo 1 Primary care 298 Yes – No Ssianulya et al. 2016 – Retrospective 1 Uganda 1 Tertiary care 741 Yes – No Adejumo et al. 2017 Cross-sectional – 1 Nigeria 1 Out-patient tertiary care 224 Yes – No Berhe et al. 2017 Cohort study Retrospective 1 Ethiopia 6 Out-patient tertiary care 897 Yes Yes No Mbui et al. 2017 Cross-sectional Retrospective 1 Kenya 1 Out-patient tertiary care 247 Yes Yes No Olowofela et al. 2017 Cross-sectional – 1 Nigeria 1 Out-patient tertiary care 514 Yes – No Teshome et al. 2018 Cross-sectional – 1 Ethiopia 1 Out-patient tertiary care 392 Yes – No
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