Mortality in a Moroccan psychiatric hospital

Abstract

Background and objectivesEven though the statistics have shown that patients with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are most likely to die 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population, the information on mortality in the Moroccan psychiatric setting is significantly limited. In the course of this study, we aim to describe the clinical characteristics and death-related data of the 18 patients who died over 10 years.MethodsIt is a retrospective and descriptive study of deceased inpatients within the Department of Psychiatry of the University Hospital Center, Ibn Rochd. The study extended over a period of 10 years, from January 1, 2011, to January 1, 2021.ResultsThe study identified the death cases of 18 patients over 10 years, with a mortality rate of 1.99/1000, in which the average age of death is around 46,4 years. Men represented 55.6% of the deceased patients. 44.4% were diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 39% had medical comorbidity. The most common causes of death were cardiac causes (22.2%), followed by neuroleptic malignant syndrome (16.7%). Suicide, sudden death, and digestive diseases accounted for 11.1% of all causes.ConclusionPeople with mental disorders experience a high mortality rate. In this study, cardiovascular diseases and the neuroleptic malignant syndrome were the main causes of death, which requires close monitoring of high-risk psychiatric patients with comorbid cardiac problems.