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Cause of death after critical illness
Author(s) -
RIDLEY S.,
PURDIE J.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2044.1992.tb02006.x
Subject(s) - medicine , hospital discharge , cause of death , intensive care unit , malignancy , respiratory failure , pediatrics , emergency medicine , intensive care medicine , surgery , disease
Summary This study reports the causes of death after discharge following treatment of life‐threatening illness on an Intensive Therapy Unit. Details of survivors discharged between June 1985 and December 1988 were sent to the Registrar General for Scotland who subsequently issued copies of death certificates of those patients who had died between discharge and 1 January 1990. The results show that the commonest causes of death after discharge were malignancy and respiratory failure, although there is wide variation in the post‐discharge mortality rates for different diagnostic categories. The admission diagnoses were identical to, or contributed to, the causes of death in 64% of patients who died after discharge. Eighty‐five percent of patients who died from the same condition which prompted admission did so within a year following discharge, but after 2 years no deaths were attributed to the admission diagnosis.