[Relationship between the cause of admission and the cause of death in patients admitted to an internal medicine departament].
BACKGROUND
When patients are admitted to an internal medicine ward, they and their relatives believe that they will leave the internal medicine service in a better health condition or, if they die, their cause of death will be the same that motivated the hospital admission. Sometimes, patients die due to a different disease than the cause of admission or due to complications of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the proportion of deaths that occurred in internal medicine wards for causes that differ from the cause for admission and the proportion of deaths related to complications of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.


METHODS
Three hundred and three consecutive patients were studied during 28 months. Their cause qf death was classified n four groups: A. If it was the same illness of admission; B. Afrecuent or expected complication of the illness that motivated the admission; C. A complication of one of their chronic diseases and not the one of admission; D. If it was not related to an already present chronic illness or the cause for admission.


RESULTS
Sixty nine percent of deaths corresponded to group A, 7.9% to group B, 11.2%96 to group C and 11.9% to group D. Diagnostic or therapeutic procedures were the cause of death in 0. 7 and 3.6% of cases respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Twenty three percent of patients died due to causes that differ from the cause of admission. A low percentage of deaths were related to procedures and most of them were due to complications of therapeutic measures.
Servicio de Medicina Interna, Hospital Naval Almirante Nef, Viña del Mar, Escuela de Medicina, Departamento de Medicina, Universidad de Valparaíso. jvegastieb@hotmail.com
Jorge
J
Vega
María José
MJ
Parodi
Claudio
C
Puebla
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002423:Cause of Death; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D017052:Hospital Mortality; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010343:Patient Admission / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015995:Prevalence