Levels and Trends of Mortality: A Five Year Retrospective Hospital Record Review

Abstract

Mortality and morbidity are indicators of health status of a population. Measuring how many people die each year and why they have died is one of the most important means. Despite the publication of several studies, there is significant uncertainty regarding the burden of disease and death among adults in sub-Saharan African countries. In Ethiopia, particularly in Northern part of the country, the impacts of such hospital-based studies are limited and/or have not been documented well. This study, therefore, focuses on the levels and trends of mortality, in Ayder comprehensive specialized teaching hospital. A retrospective analysis of all admissions into the wards of Ayder comprehensive specialized and teaching hospital from January, 2011 to December, 2015 was done. The main blocks of ICD of 10th version (ICD-10) were used to sort out the final diagnoses in the registry to group them into diseases. Descriptive statistical analysis was conducted for specific diseases and deaths. Levels of deaths were estimated using proportions, and trends were measured using Chi-square trend analysis. Odds ratios and their respective 95% confidence intervals were used to measure strength of association between sex and age with causes of death. We found one thousand two hundred seventy five recorded deaths; out of these, a quarter (n=321; 25.2%) were under five children and the median age of death was 38 years. NCDs, CDs, and ECs were identifying causes of death that accounted for 561 (44.1% [95% CI: 41.3, 36.7]), 372 (29.2% [95% CI: 26.7, 31.7]), and 53 (4.2% [95% CI: 3.1, 5.3]), respectively. NCDs showed increasing trends in proportions of death, whereas, CDs showed an increasing linear trend across the age groups at p<0.05. The proportion of death due to CDs sharply decreased through time at p<0.001 but not NCDs. We conclude that NCDs were the major causes of death. HIV/AIDS, neonatal sepsis, congestive heart failure, gastrointestinal diseases, and asphyxia were the major specific causes of death.

Keywords: NCDs, CDs, mortality, trend, level, death, causes

Cite this Article

Alemayehu Bayray, Mulubirhan Assefa, Abate Bekele. Levels and Trends of Mortality: A Five Year Retrospective Hospital Record Review. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Computational Biology. 2017; 6(1): 11–24p.