Abstract

REGALADO GARCIA, Esteban. Método de las invariantes en la conducta a seguir ante un paciente con abdomen agudo quirúrgico en el nivel primario de atención. Rev Cubana Med Gen Integr [online]. 2003, vol.19, n.4. ISSN 0864-2125.

The physicians that we are preparing today have more comprehensive vision of the health problems of the human being. In our health care system, the primary health care level constitutes, in a greater extent, an entry door. Health professionals working at this level should be ready to solve health problems inherent to their specialty and to identify those entities that should be resolved at other levels of the system. Acute surgical abdomen is a health problem to be faced immediately to avoid complications, even fatal, in our patients. A pedagogic method for acquiring with quality the necessary knowledge and orienting the correct behaviour to each patient is the method of invariants. The concept of Invariant covers the identification of essential and necessary questions to arrive at a diagnosis. When the Comprehensive General Physician knows the invariants of an entity, then he/she can take decisions with a high margin of safety. An Acute Surgical Abdomen may be caused by hundreds of diseases, therefore, it will be impossible to study them, one by one. Since this is a serious entity, any mistake made in managing this disease can be fatal. We have identified seven (7) Invariant signs in Acute Surgical Abdomen, which can be recognized in 9 out of 10 patients that go to the doctor’s with acute abdominal pain. There are difficulties due to the identification of these signs just in a small number of patients to whom we call "Special Situations"

Keywords : ABDOMEN, ACUTE [surgery]; ABDOMEN, ACUTE [diagnosis]; ABDOMEN; ACUTE [etiology]; EMERGENCIES; PRIMARY HEALTH CARE; HEALTH EDUCATION; COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE.