The reports with information on patients admitted into hospitals specialized in tuberculosis from 1984 until 1997 were analyzed after previous authorization from the Health Department of the State of São Paulo. In order to support this and other studies as well, we conducted a retrospective and descriptive study, aiming at analyzing associations between bacilloscopy and variables such as sex, age group, Health Unit, chest x-ray, clinical or social reasons for hospitalization, length of hospital stay and type of hospital discharge. Among inpatients, there were 35,510 (95.5 %) cases of pulmonary tuberculosis, and 25,477 (71.8 %) of them had a sputum bacilloscopy result; 79.4 % of the patients, of which 79.6 % were males, had a positive bacilloscopy. Male patients with positive bacilloscopy were predominant in almost all age groups, except those between 5 and 14. Patients referred by Health Centers and by General Hospitals had the highest percentage of positive bacilloscopy (85.4 % and 83.7 %, respectively). Patients admitted due to treatment failure showed the highest positiveness (91.2 %). In relation to length of hospital stay, the longer the stay, the higher the bacilloscopy positiveness. As to type, undesired discharges (due to default, upon request or for disciplinary reasons) showed higher sputum positiveness upon hospitalization. Bacilloscopy is essential to admit tuberculosis patients into hospitals in order to prevent undue hospitalization, and it is important to consider that positive patients require special care, to avoid both undesired hospital discharges and long hospitalization periods.
Tuberculosis; Sputum Bacilloscopy; Hospitalized Patients
