Características clínicas y epidemiológicas de pacientes con crisis hipertensivas atendidos en el servicio de urgencias de una institución de alto nivel de complejidad, Medellín, Colombia 2014-2015

Objective: To determine the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of patients with hypertensive crisis treated in the emergency department of an institution of high complexity between 2014 and 2015. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving patients older than 18 years who attended to the emergency department during the study period, diagnosed with any hypertensive disorder according to CIE-10; a sampling was not carried out. The analysis was performed using the SPSS vr.24 program, for quantitative variables with normal distribution, mean and standard deviation were calculated; for qualitative variables, absolute and relative frequencies were estimated. Results: 156 patients were included, with a mean age of 63 years, 73,7% were women. On admission, the most reported symptoms were headache 59%, dizziness 38,5%. About the type of hypertensive crisis 22,4% had hypertensive emergency and 77,6% presented hypertensive urgency. 61,5% were admitted and managed mainly with angiotensin enzyme inhibitors in 25%. The ischemic stroke was the main target organ compromise in the hypertensive emergency, in 31,4% and 4 patients died in total 11,4%. Conclusion: hypertensive urgency occurred more frequently in the study population, but emergencies had worse outcomes.