Estudio epidemiológico sobre enfermedades no transmisibles en población rural de San Luis, Argentina. Aspectos metodológicos

OBJECTIVE: to describe the methodological aspects of the first epidemiological study on the profile of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in rural areas of Argentina carried out in 2017. METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used. The population of reference were the inhabitants of 18 years and over from the towns of Beazley, Zanjitas, Alto Pelado and Cazador, department Juan M. de Pueyrredón, province of San Luis, Argentina. The number of inhabitants of that age group, according to the last census source, was 808 inhabitants. All the houses of each locality were visited; All subjects who met the inclusion criteria were invited to participate. The research was formed in two phases: application of a self-report questionnaire in the home, followed by physical measurements, FINDIRSC (Finnish Diabetes Risk Score) questionnaire and biochemical determinations. The data was dumped into a database in Epi Info 7. The processing and statistical analysis was performed in R 3.5.2 language. RESULTS: 375 survey records were obtained with complete data, which represented 46.41% of the population registered according to census source; 252 performed laboratory analysis (67.20%) and 250 physical examination (66.67%). The participants of the survey phase exhibited characteristics similar to those who completed all stages of the investigation for most of the characteristics studied. CONCLUSIONS: This research was a pioneer in generating knowledge about the NCD profile in the rural population of Argentina. It is expected to constitute an input for planning prevention policies taking into account local particularities.