Journal of Metabolic Syndrome

Pattern of Mortality in Medical Emergency Room: Experience at Abakaliki Nigeria

Abstract

Chukwuemeka Okorie Eze and Uma Amadi Kalu

Background: An Emergency Department (ED) is a medical treatment facility dedicated to emergency medicine with an expectedly higher mortality rate. There is no available data on the pattern of mortality in the medical emergency room of the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA), a tertiary health facility in Abakaliki South-eastern Nigeria. Hence, this study was undertaken to determine the pattern of mortality of cases seen at the Medical Emergency unit of FETHA and compare it with that elsewhere in the country with the view of using the data generated as a baseline for planning purposes and for future studies. Method: This is a retrospective, descriptive and hospital-based study of the demographics and mortality pattern of patients seen at the medical emergency unit of the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA) over an 18 months period from January 2014 to June 2015. The analysis was done using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 19 software. Result: A total number of 4,270 patients were seen over the study period with 184 deaths giving a mortality rate of 4.31%. The mortality included 104 men and 80 women. The age range and mean age of the mortality were 20108 years and 50.54 ± 12.42years respectively. Stroke accounted for 23% (43) of the mortality. Others were Heart failure, chronic liver disease, chronic kidney disease, diarrhoeal diseases, diabetes mellitus and others in descending order of frequencies. When the causes of mortality were grouped according to the systems affected, neurological disorders accounted for about 30% of the mortality while gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, respiratory and renal disorders accounted for 17%, 14%, 10%, and 7% respectively. Non-communicable diseases accounted for 70% while communicable diseases accounted for 30% of the mortality. Conclusion: The most common cause of death is a non-communicable disease at the prime productive age with male preponderance. There is a need for elaborate health education at grass root and also for the creation of separate emergency rooms for different medical specialties in tertiary health facilities to facilitate a prompt Specialist review.