Predictors of mobility impairment after hospitalization in a reference hospital among individuals with infectious diseases

ABSTRACT Infectious diseases may lead to motor and functional complications, impairing the quality of life of affected individuals. Moreover, hospitalization itself is considered an important cause of functional decline in patients. In these cases, physiotherapy aims to preserve and restore the integrity of organs and functions, promoting the maintenance of range of motion, the gain of muscle strength, the training of postural changes and gait, as well as the practice of aerobic exercises and the improvement of thoracic expandability in hospitalized individuals. This study aimed to describe the epidemiological profile of patients at a reference hospital for infectious diseases and identify predictors of mobility impairment after hospitalization This is a retrospective study based on the analysis of medical records of patients hospitalized in 2016 who required physiotherapy. Data consisted of socioeconomic and clinical variables, and the predictors of mobility impairment after hospitalization were determined by descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression. Among the 638 electronic medical records of patients hospitalized from January to December 2016 who required physiotherapy, 66.6% were men with median age of 42 years and 50.8% were HIV-positive. We verified five risk factors for mobility impairment after hospitalization: age, number of previous hospitalizations, use of mechanical ventilation, HIV-infected patients, and presence of opportunistic infections. Our findings point to the importance of physiotherapy for improving functional mobility in hospitalized patients.