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Mortality variations among public mental health patients
Author(s) -
Wood J. B.,
Evenson R. C.,
Cho D. W.,
Hagan B. J.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1985.tb02598.x
Subject(s) - medicine , public health , pneumonia , mental health , demography , population , mortality rate , cause of death , psychiatry , pediatrics , disease , environmental health , pathology , sociology
– Earlier studies of mortality of psychiatric patients are reviewed, and agreements and inconsistencies related to age, sex, diagnosis and cause of death are noted. The authors then analyze 5,268 deaths during a 5‐year period of current or former patients in Missouri public psychiatric hospitals and mental health clinics, calculating mortality ratios that are simultaneously age‐, sex‐, diagnostic‐, and causespecific. The results are used to construct a quantitative model. The ratios vary most with cause, then diagnosis, least with sex. Influenza and pneumonia contribute most to patient mortality; patient death rates for cancer are lower than population rates at all ages. There are substantial interactions of diagnosis with cause and sex. Among those diagnosed organic brain syndrome, who have the highest overall ratios, the ratios are extra high for females and for influenza and pneumonia, relatively low for external causes.