Perfil epidemiológico e o grau de incapacidade física dos casos novos notificados de hanseníase no período de 2007 a 2013 em Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Brasil

Abstract

Leprosy is a disease caused by the bacillus Mycobacterium leprae. It is considered a public health problem due to its disabling power, reaching mainly the economically active age group. This research aimed to describe the epidemiological profile and the degree of disability in new cases reported of Leprosy in the period 2007 to 2013 in Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Brazil. This is an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, using a quantitative approach. The sample consisted of 986 reported cases of leprosy in the municipality. We included all the new cases of records, found between the period 2007 and 2013 and excluded the records detected with diagnostic error at the time of investigation. The sociodemographic variables were: Year of notification; gender; Age; education; Place of residence. The clinical and epidemiological were: Clinical form; Operational classification for diagnosis and cure; Degree of disability in the diagnosis and cure; input mode; output mode. To analyze a database was structured by the statistical program Epiinfo, version 6.0. A descriptive analysis of data was performed. As a result was obtained that the sociodemographic aspects of the reported cases with leprosy in the given period reveal a population of adults (85.6%) over 20 years, with balance between males and females both 50%, mulatto (42.1%), low education predominance (elementary school level I, 24.2% and elementary school II, 23.4%) and from the urban area of the city studied (94.2%). Regarding the clinical and epidemiological there was a predominance of clinical Tuberculoid (38.2%), also stands out the presence of the clinical form Dimorph (34.2%). The paucibacillary operational classification was the clinical diagnosis identified with the highest percentage (53.9%). It has been found that a higher number of new cases detected / input (87.6%) than for high cure (72.1%). Were identified among the reported cases of leprosy the three types of physical disability (zero, I and II degree). However, the zero degree was the most frequent (79.7%). These cases generally had lower prevalence of disability at admission to the treatment regimen. The degrees of physical disabilities of cases reported in the two periods (notification and high cure) were considered low, keeping below 15%. It is concluded that the city studied seems to have efficient health services to perform early diagnosis of the disease, it showed low percentage of cases with physical disabilities. In addition to preventing the occurrence of new cases of the disease, there is another major challenge to be faced in preventing the development / worsening of disabilities in order to minimize the negative impacts of the disease.