Profile of patients attended by the speech therapists of the home care service

ABSTRACT Objective: to ascertain the profile of home care service (HCS) users with speech and language complaints in João Pessoa, Paraíba (PB). Methods: a descriptive and quantitative study using an indirect documentation technique based on an analysis of primary source documents, characterized as a documentary study, conducted at a HCS, in João Pessoa, PB, that stores user information in the form of medical records. All patient records included by the HCS from June 2012 to June 2016 were analyzed. After the eligibility criteria were applied, the sample consisted of 114 medical records. The collected data were entered into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to generate descriptive statistics using IBM SPSS (version 21.0). Results: most patients were males (59.6%), elderly (62.3%), had been diagnosed with a stroke (57.9%),had histories of dysphagia (76.3%), speech problems (58.8%), swallowing disorders (80.7%), and abnormal chewing (77.2%). Dysphagia is often associated with stroke, predominantly among males and the elderly. Conclusion difficulty in swallowing, or dysphagia, is often associated with stroke, predominantly in the presence of the sociodemographic and clinical variables associated with men and the elderly.