Health of homeless individuals
among complaints, symptoms, and determinants of chronic diseases
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5712/rbmfc17(44)3233Keywords:
Homeless persons, Epidemiology, Mental Health, Women’s health, Prevalence.Abstract
Introduction: The rough-sleeping population is vulnerable due many factors determining or conditioning their health and contribute to the raising the index of clinical comorbidities, as mental health, chronic and infectious diseases. The marginalization of the homeless population leads to a gap on the health care that sometimes is supplied by non-profit organizations, which play a fundamental social role. Objective: To map the clinical profile of the homeless population of Curitiba (PR) attended by a voluntary initiative in the period of a year. Methods: It’s an observational study based on the medical records of the 509 patients older than 18 year that had their first health-care attendance provided by the World Doctors Association, branch Curitiba (PR), in the year of 2019. Results: The predominant sociodemographic conditions were white males, aged between 36 and 45 years old, that have attended elementary school and were homeless for less than a year. The main complains that lead to health care search were pain (45,19%), dermatologic lesions (15,71%) and ophthalmologic complains (6,68%). Most of the patients exhibited chronic systemic arterial hypertension (9,03%), HIV/AIDS (3,53%) and diabetes mellitus (3,53%). There were also identified a great amount of past reported physical trauma (59%). The research found a statistical correlation between hypertension and chronic use of medications (p=0,001). Less than 10% of the rough-sleeping attended population sought medical care due mental health complains. Of the female studied population, 70% reported substance use and, approximately half of them, the regular use of chronic use medicines. Even though, contraceptives were only reported by a minority of this population (18,57%). Conclusions: Pain, dermatologic and ophthalmological complains were the main medical care seeking reason by the rough-sleeping population, besides the prevalence of systemic arterial hypertension as a chronic illness. These findings can subside and direct healthcare actions oriented to this marginalized population.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Rafael Senff Gomes, Luiza Cardoso de Lima Passoni, Ricardo de Paula Sirigatti, Leandro Rozin, Leide da Conceição Sanches, Francelise Bridi Cavassin
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