Eficácia da fita Broselow na estimativa do peso de crianças atendidas em um hospital de referência do estado de Pernambuco

Abstract

Objective. The present study aimed to verify the efficiency of the Broselow tape in estimating the weight of children attended at a referral hospital in the state of Pernambuco. Methods. The Broselow tape is a tool used internationally to quickly estimation of the body weight of critically ill pediatric patients based on lenght, allowing the calculation of drug doses, size of endotracheal tubes, evaluation of nutritional status, monitoring of nutritional therapy, among others. A cross - sectional study was fulfilled with the application of a structured questionnaire and assessment of real anthropometric measures in the patients based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the actual values of weight were compared with that estimated by the Broselow tape from the height of 491 children. Results. This instrument showed to be effective especially for the group of infants (62.9%) and pre-school children (58.9%) and patients who were eutrophic (62.2%). According to gender, the performance of the tape was slightly better for males (58%), but not statistically significant, as well as the race. In those in which the tape did not do the estimation properly, 72.38% had their weight overestimated, usually involving a range above that corresponding to the actual weight. Conclusions. In this study, the Broselow tape showed to be an efficient instrument for 55% of the sample, especially for children under 5 years and those with adequate nutritional status. However, it should attempt to the risk of overestimation of the weight, and always opt for the use of the actual measures when it is possible.