Características sociodemográficas, hábitos de vida y condiciones de salud de las personas privadas de libertad.

The deprivation of liberty, due to its characteristics, imposes on people differentiated habits and customs that can influence their health. In that sense, the objective of this is to verify the prevalence of chronic diseases in the prison population. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study, carried out in four prison unity in a city in southern Brazil. Data collection was performed by a semi-structured instrument and descriptive statistics were used for analysis. Participated 326 people deprived of freedom, 90.8% were male, 53.4% young, aged between 18 and 29 years, 43.3% single, 55.8% with less than nine years of schooling, 61.3% performed some activity in the penal unit, 63.2% were smokers or former smokers, 28.2% drank alcohol and 60.4% used or ex used illicit drugs, 71.2% practiced physical activities, 86.1% positively evaluated their health status and 52.5% reported some chronic disease. The most prevalent self-reported diseases were respiratory, gastrointestinal, mental, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal. People deprived of freedom have chronic diseases and risk factors prevalent in the general population. Knowing the epidemiological profile of this population group can contribute to health-promoting actions, prevention, and control of risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]