Introduction:

Timely diagnosis and early therapeutic intervention reduce premature mortality associated with chronic renal failure.

Objective:

To identify the prevalence and factors associated with occult renal failure in patients with chronic diseases.

Method:

Cross-sectional study of 1268 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and systemic arterial hypertension. A measuring instrument with questions about associated factors such as osteoarthritis, treatment of chronic conditions, smoking, analgesic consumption, alcoholism, body mass index, physical activity and serum glucose, cholesterol and triglyceride levels was used.

Results:

The prevalence of occult renal failure was 13.2 % (167/1,268), 13.4 % in diabetic patients (117/876) and 14.9 % in hypertensive patients (150/1,010). In the multivariate analysis, the factors associated with occult renal failure were being older than 60 years (aOR = 1.96, 95 % CI = 1.22-2.49), belonging to the female gender (aOR = 2.17, 95 % CI = 1.30-2.82), suffering from systemic arterial hypertension (aOR = 1.96, 95% CI = 1.22-2.50) and not having overweight/obesity (aOR = 0.49, 95 % CI = 0.41-0.8).

Conclusions:

The prevalence of occult renal failure was 13 %. Female patients older than 60 years with overweight/obesity and systemic arterial hypertension should be examined in detail by the family doctor for occult renal failure early detection.