Abstract
Objective: To describe the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of patients admitted with a diagnosis of Heart Failure (HF) in a public reference hospital in North Brazil. Methods: This is an observational, cross-sectional, descriptive, quantitative study, involving 65 participants admitted to a reference hospital with a clinical diagnosis of descompensated Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), from January to December 2017. Were included in the study patients over 18-year-olds, who scored more than 7 points on the Boston criterion for diagnosing the disease. To compare the causes of decompensation, the Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied using the BioEstat version 5.3 program. Results: The median age of the 65 participants was 64 years, 56.9% were men. The main factors associated with HF were arterial hypertension (66.2%), smoking (70.8%) and sedentary lifestyle (63.1%). The main etiologies were hypertensive heart disease (23%), ischemic heart disease, idiopathic cardiomyopathy and valve disease (18.5% each). The main causes of decompensation observed were valve dysfunction (26.1%) and infection (15.3%). Conclusion: Understanding the disease, associated factors, treatment, as well as access to basic services in the public health network should be prioritized to improve care in the northern region of the country.