Abstract

SENDER PALACIOS, Mª. J. et al. Functional thyroid disease in an adult population from an Primary Health Care center. Medifam [online]. 2002, vol.12, n.3, pp.40-48. ISSN 1131-5768.

Backgrounds: thyroid diseases are a common consultation in Primary Health Care. The knowledge of the situation in its area facilitates its management.  Objective: to know functional thyroid disease prevalence and type in an adult population attended from an Primary Health Care Center.  Design: transversal descriptive study.  Material and methods: sample of 442 people. Variables: age, sex, thyroid-stimulating hormone and previous thyroid disease.  Results: 375 people included [average age 46±17 years; 61,3% (n=230) women]. Previous thyroid disease: 16 cases (4%). Active functional thyroid disease: 14 cases (3,63%) distributed in 11 patients with thyroid-stimulating hormone increased (78,6%) and 3 patients with thyroid-stimulating hormone deficient (21,4%). Functional thyroid disease prevalence: total 5,9% (22 cases, 12 of them undiagnosticated previously); 8,7% (n=20) in women; 1,3% (n=2) in men; 5,9% (n=11) in the under 50 years of age group and 5,5% (n=11) in the 50 years and more of age group. Kind of disease: 0,8% (n=3) clinical hypothyroidism; 3,7% (n=14) subclinical hypothyroidism; 0,3% (n=1) clinical hyperthyroidism and 1% (n=4) subclinical hypertyroidism.  Conclusions: both functional thyroid disease total prevalence and distribution by kind of pathology and sex are not different from described in other studies. We find some differences in relation to the age groups, with a less prevalence in elderly people. The high rate in new diagnosis make us to think about the need of increase the clinical suspect of functional thyroid disease.

Keywords : Thyroid disease; Primary Health Care; Prevalence.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )