[Cross-sectional analysis of heart failure among patients in the Internal Medicine Service at a third-level hospital. Part I: epidemiologic analysis].

Objectives: To observe the epidemiologic characteristics of the patients intake during five years in a internal medicine department, with heart failure.

Methods: A cross-sectional study of the intake patients in the Internal Medicine Service in the Hospital Clínico Universitario de Santiago de Compostela between 1999 to 2003. The variables analized were: sex, age, days of hospital stay, number of intake by failure cardiac, reason for admission (guide symptom), hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cardiac disease, fibrillation atrium, previous treatment with beta-blockers, blood pressure in the admission moment, to make echocardiography, disfunction systolic, etiology, deceased, treatment at the end. The statistical analysis was performed with qualitative and quantitative measures, chi-cuadrado and t-student, and multivariant analyses.

Results: 248 patients were accepted for the study. We observed more women than men (55.2%) and bigger median age (79 years old vs. 73 years old in men, p < 0.001). The mean income was 13.61 days and a median of 11 days. The 41,8% of the patients had hypertension, 30.9% diabetes mellitus and 81,9% had someone heart disease. The aetiologies of heart failure most frequent were ischemic cardiopathy (27.2%) and hypertension (24.2%). The most frequent symptom was the dyspnea (68.9%). It made echocardiography in 20.9% of patients and 45.1% showed systolic disfunction. The only factor related with this small percentage of echocardiographies was the incoming time. The most frequent etiology was respiratory infections (39.5%). The 8.6% of patients was deceased. The pharmacologic treatment more prescribed were the diuretics (86.9%) and transcutaneous nitrates (49.5%). It was indicated ECAI or AAR-II in the 86.9% of patients and beta-blockers in 0.9%.

Conclusions: The number of echocardiograms practiced to the patients is smaller that the number advised by international associations and smaller to the cardiologist registers. The beta-blockers and ECAI use is smaller too.