Pattern of Mortality amongst In-Patients in a Tertiary Hospital South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Measurement of the number of deaths each year and evaluation of the causes is an important means of assessing the effectiveness of a healthcare delivery system and will assist health policy makers to plan for effective and efficient healthcare delivery system. There is however dearth of information on causes and pattern of in-patients hospital mortality in most countries of Sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria particularly in the South-South region. Therefore this study is aimed at finding out the mortality pattern among in-patients in a tertiary hospital South-South Nigeria.

Methods: A 3 years retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study of deaths that occurred in the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, South-South Nigeria from January 2016-December 2018 . The information for the study was collected from medical records of deaths that occurred in the hospital during the period.

Results: During the period under review, a total of 4527 patients were admitted with a total mortality of 447 with an average crude mortality rate of 9.9%. The male sex had a higher mortality of 15.0 % compared to the female of 7.2% and the age group 45-64 years recorded the highest percentage mortality (33.3%). Infectious diseases constituted the highest cause of death (28.2%) followed by neurological diseases with deaths from hematological conditions being the lowest (1.6%).

Conclusion: This study revealed that communicable diseases (infectious diseases) constituted the most common cause of death. Amongst the non-communicable diseases, neurological diseases were responsible for 15.6% of the deaths.

Key words- Mortality Pattern, Cause of Death, South-South Nigeria.