A descriptive study of mortality patterns amongst adult patients admitted to a tertiary care and teaching hospital

Abstract

Introduction
Data on mortality among hospitalised patients mostly reflect the aetiologies and distributions of severe illnesses as well as
community-level patterns of care-seeking. These hospital-based death records include details about the distribution of
diseases and deaths by age and sex, among other things, that are extremely or critically important for organising healthcare
services. The present study was undertaken to classify deaths and describe the causes of death based on the age and sex
of the patientsat the NRSMCH according to the International Classification of diseases (ICD-10).
Materials and methods
The present descriptive retrospective hospital-based study using records, was conducted at the Medical Records Department of NRSMCH between 1st January 2022 to 2nd March 2022, a total of 60 days. A complete enumeration of records of all
849 deaths that occurred in NRSMCH during the study period was done. All data were recorded in predesigned pre-tested
schedule, entered intoMicrosoft Excel (Microsoft Corp. USA) and analysed using SPSS, Version 20.
Results
The mean age of patients in the study population was 54.9 (16.5) years with 36.2% females and 63.8% males.The commonest cause of death overall are diseases of the circulatory system (I00-I99) (39.8%) followed by injury and poisoning (S00-
T98) (13.9%). Gender based analysis of deaths shows a higher proportion of deaths from diseases of the circulatory system
(I00-I99) in both females (37.5%) and males (41.1%). The second most recorded cause of mortality was injury, poisoning
(S00-T98) 13.9% overall and in both females (13%) and males (17.2%).Age group wise break-up of deaths show that the
commonest recorded cause of death in the 18- 40-year age group was injury, poisoning (S00-T98), followed by Certain
infectious parasitic diseases (A00 – B99) (18.1%). The commonest cause of death in the 41- 60-year age group was
Diseases of circulatory system (I00 – I99) (39.8%), followed by Injury, poisoning (S00 – T98) (11.7%). The commonest
cause of death in the 61–80-year age group was Diseases of circulatory system (I00 – I99) (50.3%) while the second most
common was Injury, poisoning (S00 – T98) (9.9%). In patients over the age of 80 years the commonest cause of death is
Diseases of circulatory system (I00 – I99) (56.4%) followed by Diseases of respiratory system (J00 –J99) (15.4%).
Conclusion
In the present study, most common cause of overall mortality were diseases of the circulatory system (I00-I99) of which the
commonest was Nontraumatic intracerebral haemorrhage, Unspecified, I61.9. The single most common cause of death in
the study population was “Nontraumatic intracerebral haemorrhage, Unspecified”.No major differences were observed in
the proportion of males and females in terms of the causes of death. Age group wise break-up of deaths show that the
commonest recorded cause of death in the 18- 40 age group were “Injury, poisoning” (S00-T98), while the commonest
cause of death in the 41-60, 61-80 and e” 81-year age group were “Diseases of circulatory system” (I00 – I99).