Prevalence of Dysphagia in Patients Admitted to a Department of Internal Medicine and Intensive and Intermediate Care Unit: Results of a Pilot Study

• Autor(a) principal: Aguiar,Joana Reis
• Data de Publicação: 2023
• Outros Autores: Carneiro,Rui, Carneiro,Inês, Magalhães,Luís, Carneiro,António H.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://scielo.pt/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0872-671X2023000100005
• topic: Deglutition Disorders/complications; Deglutition Disorders/epidemiology; Hospitalization; Internal Medicine.

Abstract Introduction: Dysphagia is a frequent problem during the course of life, but its prevalence in the population admitted to internal medicine services is unknown. Material and Methods: We developed a prospective, single-centre study with the purpose of calculating the prevalence rate of dysphagia in an Internal Medicine service, identifying risk factors and characterizing its main complications. Results: In a sample of 79 patients consecutively admitted over a 12-week period (54.4% male, mean age 74.2 years), the prevalence of dysphagia was 34%, and 21.5% of patients had moderate to severe dysphagia. Conclusion: The presence of dysphagia was related to gender, age, comorbidity index, functional status and presence of previous dysphagia in this sample. About one in six patients developed complications of dysphagia during hospitalization and their occurrence was related to the severity of dysphagia.