Summary
Deaths in hospital emergency departments in Andalusia: patient characteristics
Ruiz-Ramos M, García-León FJ, López-Campos JL
Affiliation of the authors
Servicio de Información y Evaluación, Consejería de Salud de Andalucía, Spain. Unidad Médico-Quirúrgica de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Biomedicina de Sevilla (IBiS), Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocio, Sevilla, Spain. CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES). Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
DOI
Quote
Ruiz-Ramos M, García-León FJ, López-Campos JL. Deaths in hospital emergency departments in Andalusia: patient characteristics. Emergencias. 2014;26:109-13
Summary
Objective: To describe the characteristics of patients who die in hospital emergency
departments in Andalusia, Spain, in relation to patients who die after hospitalization.
Methods: Deaths occurring in an emergency department or in other departments of
Andalusian hospitals were analyzed; data were extracted from the hospitals minimum
basic data sets. Age, marital status, province, and cause of death were recorded. From
the data we constructed logistic regression models and estimated crude and adjusted
odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs.
Results: Of the 23 295 deaths registered, 2853 occurred in emergency departments;
47.7% of the deceased patients were females. More deaths occurred among widows or
widowers and among patients with cancer or ischemic heart disease. After adjustment
for confounders, the variables that remained associated with risk of death in the
emergency department were older age and ischemic heart disease (OR, 1.56).
Conclusion: Most deaths in Andalusian emergency departments are in elderly persons
and the main cause of death is ischemic heart disease.