Epidemiological and assistance care profile of patients with heart failure in a regional reference municipality

Abstract

Introduction: heart failure is a crippling disease that reduces the quality of life; therefore, it is a serious public health problem. Objectives: to analyze the epidemiological and assistance care profile of heart failure patients admitted to a regional reference hospital. Statistically correlate clinical signs to diagnostic criteria and admissions to primary care services. To verify consistency between the treatment used and heart failure guidelines. Patients and methods: this was a prevalence, cross-sectional, and an exploratory study conducted through the reading of medical charts from a regional reference hospital from patients whose cause for hospitalization was heart failure in 2010. The data were analyzed in the Epi-Info 3.5 software. Frequency analysis and Odds Ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval were calculated taking into account the P-value calculated through the Fisher's exact test. The project was approved by the University Ethics Committee (Protocol 159/2011). Results: 54 medical records were analyzed; 81% of patients had access to a primary care unit in the area of their residence. Dyslipidemia was associated with the highest number of hospitalizations (OR = 16/P = 0.034). The primary etiology of heart failure was systemic hypertensive heart disease (72.2%). The main risk factors found were hypertension (66.7%), smoking (48.1%), diabetes mellitus (44.4%), and dyslipidemia (40.7%). Out of the heart failure diagnoses, 68.52% could have been made from the Framingham criteria. Conclusions: permanent education programs are needed for addressing heart failure risk factors, evaluation and adherence to treatment, and active search for cases in the primary care as well as diagnosis of heart failure and its proper management.

Perfis clínico e epidemiológico de idosos com insuficiência cardíaca

“…3 It is known, with regard to smoking, that smoking increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases, being an aggravating factor for HF. 3 In this study, the prevalence of smoking was 28.3%, which was lower than that found in another study, 15 in a reference hospital in the region of Minas Gerais, with a prevalence of smoking in 48.1%.…”

Indicators of effectiveness of nursing care in the dimension of patient safety

“…We highlight the participants' distrust in relation to the sources of data collection since, in Brazilian reality, medical records are incomplete or omit International Classification of Diseases' diagnoses (34) .…”