[Nursing diagnoses in children with congenital heart disease: differences by gender and age]

To assess the relationship between gender and age and development of nursing diagnoses in children with congenital heart disease.

Cross-sectional study conducted on forty five children with congenital heart disease. Those nursing diagnoses with a frequency greater than 50% were selected for the association analysis, to which the chi-squared or Fisher tests were applied. The Levene test for homogeneity of variance and then the t-test was used to compare the mean age between children with and without the nursing diagnosis.

The children had mean age of 4.74 months (SD=3.78 months) and 66.7% (30) were boys. The female gender was associated with the nursing diagnosis activity intolerance (P=.009) and delayed growth and development (P=.013). The presence of the nursing diagnoses impaired gas exchange, ineffective breathing pattern, ineffective tissue perfusion, decreased cardiac output and activity intolerance was associated with younger children. On the other hand, the children who presented risk of infection and delayed growth and development had higher mean of age.

The population of girls had a higher risk for activity intolerance and delayed growth and development. Furthermore, younger children showed a higher risk for diagnoses related to respiratory and cardiovascular problems.