Clinical profile of long-living elderly at an intensive care unit

Abstract

Objective: To identify the clinical and sociodemographic profile of long-living elderly at an intensive care unit. Methods: Cross-sectional, retrospective and quantitative study, developed at the ICU of a private hospital in Salvador. The participants were long-living elderly admitted between January 2014 and December 2015, hospitalized for 24 hours or longer. The data were collected in the patients' electronic charts. The data collection instrument was constructed based on the information contained mainly in the nursing history, aiming to register the sociodemographic and clinical variables. The collected data were typed in Excel 2010 and analyzed using statistical software. For the sake of comparison between the variables, Pearson's χ2 test was used. The results are presented in tables and their discussion rests on evidence about the theme. Results: Among the 252 long-living elderly identified, 64.3% were female. 63.9% came from the emergency service, a statistically significant factor if related to mortality, and 91.3% of them presented comorbidities, particularly non-transmissible chronic conditions, mainly cardiovascular conditions (81.7%) and diabetes mellitus (32.9%). Non-infectious manifestations (84.5%) were the main causes of hospitalization. Upon admission, 71.0% were hydrated, 65.1% eutrophic, 39.3% breathing environmental air spontaneously, 57.5% with spontaneous diurhesis and 77.0% with intact skin. The prevailing length of hospitalization was between 11 and 20 days (24.6%), with death as the main outcome (51.6%). Conclusion: Even in favorable conditions upon admission, the duration of hospitalization at the unit was long and the percentage of deaths was high.