Formulário digital para aplicabilidade dos Critérios de Alvarado no diagnóstico de apendicite aguda por estudantes de graduação de Medicina

Abstract

Background. Acute appendicitis is a public health issue: its morbidity increases significantly if not diagnosed and treated in a timely manner and its complications may result in patient’s death. Several diagnostic methods and several instruments have been investigated and many have been validated by medical practice and medical teaching about appendicitis’ diagnosis. Alvarado’s criteria are part of this group; thus, their semiotic simplicity could justify their usage in the education of early-years medical students through the employment of a platform largely used by individuals of the corresponding age. Objectives. To develop a digital form composed of Alvarado’s Criteria for the diagnosis of acute appendicitis; to determine the form validity when applied by early-years medical students. Methods. An electronic form was developed using digital platform Google© Forms. Early-years medical students, after a lecture about the disease, evaluated abdominal pain syndrome patients selected by active search in medical records and responded to Alvarado’s Criteria digital form, deciding or not for the acute appendicitis hypothesis. These data, tabulated in Microsoft© Excel electronic spreadsheet, were then compared by the researcher to similar data contained in medical records, and confirmed or not the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Variables were arranged in 2 x 2 tables and were submitted to subsequent statistical analysis. Results. An electronic form was developed using digital Google© Forms platform. This form was integrated by cloud computing to Microsoft© Excel electronic spreadsheet for the compilation of data concerning the Score of Alvarado. After a brief introductory lecture, early-years medical students were invited to fill the form out, by using their smartphones. Subsequently, they were supposed to indicate in the form which patients would carry the diagnosis of acute appendicitis among those with abdominal pain. For a sample of 211 patients, electronic application of Alvarado’s Criteria by students demonstrated sensitivity of 80%, specificity of 81%, positive predictive value of 17% and negative predictive value of 98% in the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. The accuracy of the studied method was 81%. Frequency of appendicitis (4%) in the observed population corresponded to usual described medical literature prevalence values for the disease. Conclusions. Results pointed to the feasibility of the employment of the digital platform and demonstrated that the validity of the inserted Alvarado Criteria could be satisfactorily measured when applied by medical students of initial years.