Pediatric chronic patients at outpatient clinics: a study in a Latin American University Hospital ☆

摘要

Objective: To describe the characteristics of children and adolescentes with chronic diseases of outpatient clinics at a tertiary university hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed with 16,237 patients with chronic diseases followed-up in one year. The data were collected through the electronic system, according to the number of physician appointments in 23 pediatric specialties. Patients were divided in two groups: children (0-9 years) and adolescents (10-19 years). Early (10-14 years) and late (15-19 years) adolescent groups were also analyzed. Results: Of the total sample, 56% were children and 46% were adolescents. The frequencies of following pediatric specialties were significantly higher in adolescents when compared with children: cardiology, endocrinology, hematology, nephrology/renal transplantation, neurology, nutrology, oncology, palliative and pain care, psychiatry, and rheumatology ( p 0.05). The frequencies of emergency service visits (30% vs . 17%, p 0.001), hospitalizations (23% vs . 11%, p 0.001), intensive care unit admissions (6% vs . 2%, p 0.001), and deaths (1% vs . 0.6%, p = 0.002) were significantly lower in adolescents than in children. However, the number of physician appointments (≥13) per patient was also higher in the adolescent group (5% vs . 6%, p = 0.018). Further analysis comparison between early and late adolescents revealed that the first group had significantly more physician appointments (35% vs . 32%, p = 0.025), and required more than two pediatric specialties (22% vs . 21%, p = 0.047). Likewise, the frequencies of emergency service visits (19% vs . 14%, p 0.001) and hospitalizations (12% vs . 10%, p = 0.035) were higher in early adolescents. Conclusions: This study evaluated a large population in a Latin American hospital and suggested that early adolescents with chronic diseases required many appointments, multiple specialties and hospital admissions.