IJCM_407A: Mortality pattern among adults at a tertiary care centre, Tamil Nadu -a retrospective observational study

Abstract

Background: Records of vital events like death constitute an important component of the Health Information System. Therefore, these hospital-based death records maintained by Medical Records Department (MRD) can provide information regarding the causes and distribution of deaths, pattern of major illness which are of immense importance in planning health care services. But obtaining meaningful statistics from these records is considerably lacking. Hence, the need of present study. Objective: 1. To identify the mortality pattern among 18-45 years in tertiary care hospital, Madurai, Tamil Nadu from January to December 2022 2. To evaluate socio-demographic distribution and causes of deaths during that period. Methodology: It was an Institution based retrospective observational study. From MRD, Complete enumeration of hospital records of all medically certified deaths of in-patients of 18-45 years who died during January 1st to December 31st 2022 was carried out from May 2023 to August 2023 (n=2038). Data was checked for completeness, entered into Excel sheet and analyzed using SPSS software. Necessary permission was sought from hospital administrative authority to access the hospital records. Results: Among 2038 deaths, 72.52% were males, 26.60% belonged to 41 to 45 years of age. After categorization of all deaths, Road Traffic Accident (RTA) constituted the leading cause of death (28.26%; n=576) followed by Respiratory System (RS)(11.68%), CVS(9.22%) and others. Coronary Artery Disease constituted 39.36% deaths among CVS, 63.12% by Cerebrovascular Accidents among CNS and 23.95% by pneumonia among RS and 77.70% by CKD among renal. In all age groups, RTA constitute the major cause of death with maximum mortality among 18 to 25 years. RS and RTA constituted the major cause of mortality among females and males respectively. Significant association observed between age, gender and causes of mortality(P<0.05) Conclusion: More stringent measures needed to combat RTA deaths