RESUMEN
Most of patients that present hyperglycemia during hospitalization still have the condition when they are discharged. A good level of metabolic control for hospitalized patients was set at a glycemic value between 70 and 180 mg/dl, taking into account that no statistics exist for the studied population. Aim: To describe reasons for hospitalization and glycemic control of patients with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) hospitalized in the Internal Medicine UNIT (SMI) of Hospital San Martin of Quillota (HSMQ). Patients and methods: Descriptive study of serial cases that included all patients of the SMI of HSMQ during July and August 2014. The information was obtained by daily census, analysis of nursing data, and interviews with patients. The information included general characteristics of the population and in patient management. Results: Of a total of 353 patients, 55 (15.6 percent) corresponded to diabetic patients, of them 92.7 percent had DM type 2. The average duration of hospitalization for not DM was 7 days where as for the DM it was 13.4 days. The principal reason for hospitalization for DM patients was infection: 23.6 percent (13/55). During hospitalization, most of patients care was controlled by means of "sliding scale" (28/55), but the schemes were quite variable, predominantly resulting in normal glycemia (63.8 percent) followed by hyperglycemia (33.7 percent). Conclusion: We found a significant percentage of patients with hyperglycemia and a great variability in the managing of DM in this sample, which indicates the importance of implementing a protocol for managing these cases...