The city of Olinda (Pernambuco, Brazil) created a tool for storing data from the Emergency Mobile Healthcare Service forms (SAMU-192) which is a pioneer in providing georeferenced information on the treatment given. The aim of the present study was to describe the epidemiological profile of care in the city from February (implementation of the service) to June 2006, with an emphasis on the spatial distribution of the most relevant events. Secondary data from the SAMU-192 database was used, considering the frequency of the following variables: gender, age, type of event, day of the week, type of clinical cause, type of external cause, type of traffic accident and vehicles involved. Based on the frequency of the types of clinical/external causes, those of greater magnitude were used for mapping and identifying spatial clusters using the Kernel intensity estimator. Among the 1,956 events, 1,114 were due to clinical causes and 645 were due to external causes; weekends totaled 46.0% of the events; 55.1% of events due to clinical causes were in women, whereas 72.1% of external causes were in men. The average age for clinical causes was 47 years and for external causes was 34 years. Circulatory system diseases accounted for 23.1% of clinical causes. Traffic accidents accounted for 52.7% of external causes, 61.1% of which were run overs and 33.6% involved motorcycles. The spatial analysis emphasized the need for integration between the Health Department and other agencies in order to implement preventive measures. The epidemiological profile offers information that can assist in the organization of the service and in the understanding of the morbidity profile.
Pre-Hospital Emergency Care; Epidemiological profile; Emergency medicine; Spatial distribution
