Profile of elderly hospitalized in a university hospital

Abstract

Population aging is one of the greatest challenges of contemporary public health care and there are few studies on the use of hospital services by the elderly.This study aimed to describe the profile of elderly hospital admissions in a university hospital in the North of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. This is a descriptive and retrospective study, with clinical and epidemiological aspects of a representative sample of elderly inpatients. The data were collected by a previously tested instrument. Hospitalizations in the elderly population accounted for 11.0% of the total. It was observed that most of the individuals were aged between 60 and 69 years (44.9%), were female (56.2%) and had not studied or completed primary education (94.2%). We have observed that 70.7% were hospitalized for the first time and 29.3% had had two or more previous admissions. The hospital stay ranged from 1 to 59 days with an average of eight days.The highest percentage of hospital admissions was observed for respiratory diseases (18.5%) chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia, followed by the group of diseases of the circulatory system (18.1%), especially heart failure. When they are discharged the elderly presented better health conditions. However, 12.7% (n = 35) of them had an unsatisfactory progress, with stable clinical condition or death.The profile observed coincides with other national studies. It is expected that the results may support programs to adequacy of services to the population studied.