Prevalência de feridas num distrito do Norte de Portugal

Abstract

Introduction: Wounds, chronic and acute, are a health problem with a tremendous impact in society such that the World Health Organization describes it as the new hidden epidemic that affects millions of people worldwide. (WHO, 2008) Currently, the areas of woundcare, as the wounds themselves, have an important and "heavy" burden on both individual and community settings. With this we obtain a significant increase in morbidity and therefore costs in providing care. It is estimated that, worldwide, there are at least 300 million acute wounds; 100 million traumatic and 20 million chronic wounds. Aims: The general objectives of this study are intended to: estimate the prevalence of wounds in users of the health units integrated on a Local Health Unit and to characterize the users with wounds on the same health units (ULS). Methodology: This is a prevalence study, as the data processing method and the data collection time is cross-sectional, inserting the quantitative, observational and crossparadigm. The sample was obtained by not accidental probabilistic sampling on Primary Health Care and Hospital Healthcare of that district, belonging to the Local Health Unit (ULS) during the 2nd week of March 2014. Results: The Hospital Healthcare of 364 individuals, who were hospitalized, 151 had wounds and in Primary Healthcare 439 had wounds, achieving a total of 590 wounds. It was obtained one prevalence rate of 41.5% and 3.63 % respectively and the overall prevalence rate was 4.74 %. Conclusion: The results generally are within the expected values when compared to other similar studies. Only the prevalence of wounds in Health Primary Care presents is slightly higher.

Date of Award	28 Jul 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	João Costa Amado (Supervisor)