Abstract

BOUZA-MORA, Laura; RODRIGUEZ-MASIS, David; HERNANDEZ-CHAVARRIA, Francisco  and  MACHADO, Luis. Strongyloides stercoralis en pacientes psiquiátricos. Rev. costarric. cienc. méd [online]. 2004, vol.25, n.3-4, pp.49-53. ISSN 0253-2948.

Strongyloides stercoralis is an intestinal parasite, which prevalence is usually underestimated in Costa Rica, because the stool samples are analyzed only by direct fecal smears; whereas, for S. stercoralis analysis is necessary to use more sensible methods; such as the Baermann or agar culture methods. In other countries the psychiatric patients are considered as a risk group for this parasite. For this reason, a group of patients (n=108) and personal (n=71) from the National Hospital of Psychiatric were studied using a modification of the Baermann method and the standard direct fecal analysis. The most frequent parasites found were Endolimax nana (20%), Entamoeba coli (16%), Giardia duodenalis (4%), and two cases of S. stercoralis were diagnosed, one from the patients and the other in the staff. This report stresses the importance of the use of Baermann method, because the two cases of S. stercoralis found and other two cases of Trichuris and another two of hookworms were diagnosed only with this method. The global prevalence of intestinal parasites of the psychiatric patients was 30%, a 10% higher than the prevalence described for the country, according to the national survey from 1996. Our data corroborate that the psychiatric patients represent a high-risk group for intestinal parasites and also to any other agent transmitted by fecal contamination.

Keywords : Strongyloides stercoralis; Baermann method; intestinal parasites; psychiatric patients.