Articles: mortality.
-
This paper poses three questions: (1) Does mortality from natural causes spike around Christmas and New Year? (2) If so, does this spike exist for all major disease groups or only specialized groups? (3) If twin holiday spikes exist, need this imply that Christmas and New Year are risk factors for death? To answer these questions, we used all official U. S. death certificates, 1979-2004 (n = 57,451,944) in various hospital settings to examine daily mortality levels around Christmas and New Year. We measured the Christmas increase by comparing observed deaths with expected deaths in the week starting on Christmas. ⋯ In the two weeks starting with Christmas, there is an excess of 42,325 deaths from natural causes above and beyond the normal winter increase. Christmas and New Year appear to be risk factors for deaths from many diseases. We tested nine possible explanations for these risk factors, but further research is needed.
-
Eur J Trauma Emerg S · Oct 2010
The impact of trauma mechanism on outcome: a follow-up study on health-related quality of life after major trauma.
To relate the trauma mechanism in a trauma population to health-related quality of life outcomes and mortality rates. ⋯ Even though the follow-up rate was only 53%, this study showed that, at 12 months, patients with self-inflicted injuries had significantly lower HRQoL ratings. There was no difference in mortality with regard to trauma mechanism. Cooperation between emergency service and psychiatric care early in the acute phase could provide a golden opportunity to reach this patient group.
-
Although cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol drinking, obesity, and several other well-studied unhealthy lifestyle-related factors each have been linked to the risk of multiple chronic diseases and premature death, little is known about the combined impact on mortality outcomes, in particular among Chinese and other non-Western populations. The objective of this study was to quantify the overall impact of lifestyle-related factors beyond that of active cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption on all-cause and cause-specific mortality in Chinese women. ⋯ In this first study, to our knowledge, to quantify the combined impact of lifestyle-related factors on mortality outcomes in Chinese women, a healthier lifestyle pattern-including being of normal weight, lower central adiposity, participation in physical activity, nonexposure to spousal smoking, and higher fruit and vegetable intake-was associated with reductions in total and cause-specific mortality among lifetime nonsmoking and nondrinking women, supporting the importance of overall lifestyle modification in disease prevention. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.
-
Unplanned admission to the intensive care unit has been shown to significantly increase the risk of inhospital mortality. Medical advances and increased expectations have resulted in a greater number of very elderly patients (80 years and over) being admitted to the ICU. The risk of in-hospital death associated with unplanned admission to the ICU in very elderly patients has not been clearly defined. ⋯ Unplanned admission to the ICU increases the risk of in-hospital mortality in very elderly patients. At least 50% of the risk of in-hospital death in this age group is attributable to a combination of unplanned ICU admission, comorbidity (≥1 comorbid condition), acute renal failure and respiratory failure.
-
To assess the frequency of after-hours discharges of patients from the intensive care unit and its effect on in-hospital mortality. ⋯ A high proportion of patients (34.7%) were discharged from the ICU after-hours. Discharge after-hours was associated with a higher risk of in-hospital mortality than discharge during work hours.