Leprosy: Operational Indicators in a Brazilian Hyperendemic Municipality

Abstract

Background: Interest in the subject arose from my participation in study groups and in a macro project on hanseniasis, in the city of Floriano by the Department of Nursing - Postgraduate Program. The city of Floriano is among the Piaui municipalities with the highest notified disease in the period of 2008 and 2009, with 187 cases being considered a municipality historically hyperendemic of leprosy thus emerged the following question: how to present the operational indicators of leprosy in city of Floriano? Faced with this situation, this research aims to: evaluate the operational indicators of leprosy in a city of Floriano, Piauí. Methods: descriptive study of time series with a quantitative approach, based on analysis of a population of 1,083 new cases of leprosy, for the period from 2001 to 2014. The data were collected in the database of Notifiable Diseases Information System. Data analysis was based on the parameters set out in Decree 149 of February 4, 2016 the Ministry of Health. We used Microsoft Excel 2013 program for data processing. Resultados: during the study period were recorded 1072 cases of the disease. The indicators: proportion of new cases with degree of assessed disability and proportion of cured cases among new cases showed improvement in quality of care. The percentage of cases cured and evaluated in the discharge due to cure presented itself below the number of 1072. The evaluation of disability in high cure was 22.2% in 2007, 98.8% in 2010 and 85.7% in 2014 and the average percentage of contacts was 39.5%, ranging from 3.5% in 2005 to 82% by 2013. Conclusão: Although the operational indicators showed slight improvement in the quality of care for people with hanseniasis is still a serious public health problem in the city of Floriano.