Hospitalizações por insuficiência cardíaca em Vitória da Conquista, Bahia: evolução temporal, perfil demográfico e mortalidade hospitalar no SUS, 2015 a 2025

Heart failure is a syndrome of major clinical and healthcare relevance, associated with frequent hospitalizations and high mortality, and local evidence from the interior of Bahia is scarce. This study aimed to analyze the temporal evolution of heart failure hospitalizations, the demographic profile, and in-hospital mortality among people aged 20 years or older admitted to the Brazilian Unified Health System in Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, between 2015 and 2025. It is a retrospective ecological time-series study based on public aggregated data from the SUS Hospital Information System, restricted to admissions with a principal diagnosis in ICD-10 category I50, with comparison against the rest of the state. Frequencies, proportions, Wilson confidence intervals, the chi-square test, a binomial model adjusted for age group and year, and Prais-Winsten regression were used, with Holm correction for multiple comparisons. A total of 3,726 admissions and 553 in-hospital deaths were recorded, with mortality of 14.84 percent and a mean length of stay of 8.85 days. People aged 60 years or older accounted for 72.41 percent of admissions, and mortality increased with age, reaching 21.49 percent from 80 years onward, with no detectable difference between sexes. Mortality was higher than in the rest of Bahia, with an adjusted odds ratio of 1.39, but there was no evidence of a linear temporal trend in admissions or mortality. The municipality concentrates a predominantly older hospital demand with mortality above the state level, and its interpretation must consider severity, referral flows, and the limits of an administrative database.