Profile of Patients with Hypertension And/or Diabetes Mellitus from Primary Healthcare Units

Objective: To analyze the characteristics of patients with hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus from Primary Healthcare units.

Methods: This is a retrospective study, with data collected from December 2014 of patients with hypertension and/or diabetes from 13 Primary Healthcare units located in the Southern region of Sao Paulo (SP, Brazil). Patients were compared by sex, diagnosis and cardiovascular risk using student t test, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and χ2 tests.

Results: We evaluated 28,496 patients aged 20 years to 79 years (mean of 57.8 years). Most of patients were women (63.2%) and aged 50 years old or older (74.2%). The participation in the Programa Remédio em Casa (Medicine at Home Program) was higher among women (12.7%), and the proportions of hypertension, diabetes and both diseases were 68.0%, 7.9% and 24.1%, respectively. Patients with hypertension and diabetes had higher participation in Medicine at Home Program (13.3%), and those with diabetes only had higher participation in Programa de Automonitoramento Glicêmico (Self-Monitoring Glucose Program) (20.0%). The proportions of low, moderate, and high cardiovascular risk were 33.0%, 15.5%, and 51.5%, respectively.

Conclusion: The sample of this study consisted of patients who were mostly women, aged 50 years or older and diagnosed with hypertension. Almost a quarter of patients also had diabetes and approximately one third and half of them were classified as low and high cardiovascular risk.